SAflUELGMfflAN  ARMSTRONG 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  STUDY 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 


Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

A    BIOGRAPHICAL    STUDY 


BY 
EDITH  ARMSTRONG  TALBOT 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
1904 


Copyright,  1904,  by 

Edith  A.  Talbot 
Published,  January,  1904 


PREFACE 

THIS  brief  outline  of  my  father's  life,  work  and 
character  is  written  in  the  hope  that  it  may  be 
read  not  only  by  those  who  knew  him,  but  by  those 
to  whom  the  name  of  Samuel  Armstrong  suggests 
no  personal  memories. 

The  scenes  amid  which  he  moved  in  his  early 
life  have  already  become  unreal  in  the  dimness  of  a 
historic  past;  many  of  the  problems  with  which 
he  struggled  are  solved ;  even  in  the  ten  years  which 
have  elapsed  since  his  death  such  a  change  has 
come  over  Negro  affairs  that  their  earlier  aspects 
are  almost  forgotten.  To  reanimate  these  bygone 
conditions  and  difficulties  which  he  daily  con- 
fronted, and  more  than  all  to  show  in  the  midst 
of  many  intricate  activities  the  man  himself,  an 
embodiment  of  life  and  aspiration  combating  by 
sheer  determination  all  discouragement  and  hesi- 
tancy— this  is  my  aim. 

This  aim  alone  justifies  a  disregard  of  his  especial 
request  that  no  biography  of  himself  should  be 
written.  He  read  many  biographies.  Some  of 
them  he  liked  and  received  from  them  help  and 
encouragement,  while  others  impressed  him  as 
"pretty  good  stories"  written  by  "kind  friends" 
to  perpetuate  agreeable  personal  memories.  He 

v 


vi.  Preface 

greatly  feared  that  such  treatment  would  be  given 
him  when  he  was  no  longer  able  to  defend  himself ; 
to  be  canonized  was  a  fate  that  he  really  dreaded. 
Nevertheless,  he  felt  the  value  of  the  simple  and 
sincere  story  of  a  useful  life ;  and  had  he  thought  that 
the  telling  of  his  own  life-story  would  strengthen  a 
single  impulse  for  good  or  encourage  a  single 
struggler,  he  would  have  cordially  assented  to  the 
telling  of  it.  Remembering  his  preferences,  I  have 
omitted  such  details  of  his  personal  life  as  satisfy 
a  merely  curious  interest. 

I  wish  to  express  my  thanks  first  of  all  to  my 
husband;  to  Doctor  Talcott  Williams,  Professor 
LeBaron  R.  Briggs,  Colonel  T.  W.  Higginson,  Mr. 
Robert  C.  Ogden,  Mr.  Bliss  Perry,  General  O.  O. 
Howard,  Mr.  Herbert  Welsh,  and  Reverend  H.  B. 
Frissell,  for  their  kind  and  generous  interest  in 
this  book,  as  well  as  to  those  who  have  lent  their 
treasured  letters  for  publication. 

EDITH  ARMSTRONG  TALBOT. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  HAWAIIAN  LIFE.     1839-1860     ...  3 

II  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE.     1860-1862        .         .  41 

III  LIFE  IN  THE  ARMY.     1862-1865       .         .  62 

IV  LIFE  IN  THE  ARMY — Continued  ...  96 
V  THE  FREEDMEN'S  BUREAU.     1866-1872    .  133 

VI  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  HAMPTON  .         .         .154 

VII  AT  HAMPTON.     1870-1890         .         .         .  181 

VIII  IN  THE  NORTH.     1870-1890      .         .         .  218 

IX  THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SOUTH    .         .         .  257 

X  WORK  FOR  THE  INDIAN     ....  275 

XI     LAST  YEARS.     1893 291 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong        .        .         . 

FACING  PAGE 

Birthplace  of  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  on  the 

Island  of  Maui,  Hawaiian  Islands  .  .  8 
The  entrance  to  Stone  House  at  Honolulu  .  .  14 
Family  group — Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  at 

the  age  of  18 22 

Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  at  the  age  of  20  .  40 
Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  as  Lieutenant-Colonel 

of  the  Ninth  United  States  Colored  Troops  96 
Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong — taken  about  the 

time  of  his  sojourn   at   the   officers'   hospital 

at  Hampton,  Va 118 

A  group  of  friends  at  Hampton  in  Freedmen's 

Bureau  times — Armstrong  in  the  center  .  132 
Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  at  the  age  of  28  .  154 
Academic  Hall — erected  1869  and  destroyed  by 

fire  November  9,  1879  .  .  .  .172 

General  Armstrong — 1880 180 

Virginia  Hall — erected  1872  .  .  .  .184 
Mansion  House  in  1872 — General  Armstrong's 

home — foundations   of  Virginia   Hall   to  the 

right 196 

Mansion  House  after  improvements  in  1886  .  198 
Medallion  of  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  made  in 

1901  by  Theo.  A.  Ruccles-Kitson  .  .218 
Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong  .  .  .  .254 


PART  I 

SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 

CHAPTER  I 
HAWAIIAN  LIFE.     1839-1860 

The  history  of  a  man's  childhood   is   the  description  of  his 
parents  and  environment. — CARLYLE. 

SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG  was  fortu- 
nate in  both  parentage  and  environment.  He 
was  born  January  30,  1839,  on  the  island  of 
Maui,  Hawaiian  Islands,  and  brought  up  amid  the 
soft  airs  and  noble  scenery  of  that  beautiful  tropical 
archipelago.  Maui  contains  one  of  the  most  striking 
natural  features  of  the  group,  the  extinct  crater  of 
Haleakala,  which  thrusts  its  head  into  the  clouds 
10,000  feet  above  the  sea-level,  and  on  the  grassy 
slopes  of  this  mountain,  overlooking  the  island  and 
the  surrounding  sea,  was  his  birthplace  and  the  home 
of  his  parents,  Richard  and  Clarissa  Armstrong,  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Hawaiians.  Although  the  family 
remained  in  Maui  but  a  year  after  his  birth,  he  always 
retained  a  peculiar  fondness  for  it,  returning  to  it 
often  as  a  boy  for  horseback  rambles  among  its 
forests  and  gorges.  He  gloried  in  its  splendid  peaks 
and  coasts ;  and  about  Haleakala  (the  House  of  the 
Sun)  centered  in  later  life  his  thoughts  of  rest  and 
inspiration. 

3 


$.  SamtxeJ  Chapman  Armstrong 

The  Armstrongs  were  people  of  the  pioneer  type, 
fitted  to  enter  into  unbroken  fields  and  prepare 
them  for  later  f ruitf ulness ;  full  of  strength ;  able  to 
endure  and  to  hand  down  their  power  of  endurance 
to  their  children. 

The  father  came  of  Scotch-Irish  parentage,  and 
was  reared  in  central  Pennsylvania,  in  that  whole- 
some farm  life  from  which  have  sprung  so  many 
men  of  power.  Rather  delicate  in  health,  he  was 
regarded  as  predestined  for  the  ministry,  and  when 
of  the  proper  age  entered  Princeton  Theological  Sem- 
inary. While  there  he  became  convinced  that  his 
work  lay  in  the  mission  field,  and  spent  his  vacations 
and  spare  time  studying  medicine  in  Philadelphia  in 
order  to  prepare  himself  more  fully  for  this  work. 
On  applying  to  the  American  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners for  Foreign  Missions  for  a  position  in  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  he  was  accepted  by  them  and 
prepared  to  assume  his  new  duties  at  the  earliest 
opportunity.  About  this  time — in  March,  1830 — he 
wrote  home: 


"Perhaps  you  may  be  somewhat  surprised  at  the 
course  I  have  chosen,  and  will  be  ready  to  ask,  'Why 
not  preach  among  the  destitute  at  home?'  In  answer 
to  this  I  would  say  that  the  choice  is  not  my  own;  it 
appears  to  be  marked  out  for  me  by  Him  whom  I  am 
bound  to  serve  forever.  The  American  Board  wish 
to  send  out  twenty  missionaries  in  eighteen  months. 
Most  likely  I  shall  be  one  of  them.  Then  farewell, 
America,  and  farewell  earthly  enjoyments." 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  5 

The  farewell  to  earthly  enjoyments,  however, 
was  preceded  by  a  happy  event  which,  with  the 
completion  of  medical  and  theological  courses, 
marked  the  last  few  months  of  his  stay  in  America. 
In  September  he  was  married  to  Clarissa  Chapman, 
of  Blandford,  Massachusetts. 

Clarissa  Chapman  had  been  reared  in  the  same 
plain  farm  life  to  which  he  himself  was  accustomed, 
and  was  endowed  with  a  fine  physique  and  many 
practical  aptitudes.  She  wrote  of  her  own  early 
life: 

"In  those  days  women  did  their  own  housework, 
and  it  was  thought  disgraceful  to  be  lazy  or  untidy. 
Daughters  worked  with  their  mothers  and  sons  with 
their  fathers.  The  spinning  of  wool  and  flax  and  tow, 
the  knitting  and  weaving  by  the  fire  while  one  read 
aloud,  and  the  singing  of  sacred  hymns,  were  the 
pleasures.  I  learned  to  do  all  kinds  of  household  work, 
and  also  often  assisted  my  father,  who  was  crippled  by 
rheumatism,  in  the  care  of  the  cows  and  sheep — an 
experience  for  which  in  my  years  of  wandering  I  have 
often  had  occasion  to  be  deeply  thankful." 

But  she  had  parents  who  saw  in  their  daughter 
possibilities  of  something  more  than  routine  farm 
work,  and  who,  in  spite  of  the  scoffing  of  neigh- 
bours, sent  her  away  to  be  educated.  When  she  met 
Richard  Armstrong  she  had  been  graduated  from 
the  Westfield  (Massachusetts)  Normal  School,  partly 
through  her  own  efforts,  partly  through  the  help 
her  parents  were  able  to  give  her,  and  was  holding 
a  position  as  teacher  in  a  Pestalozzian  Infant 


6  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

School  in  Brooklyn,  New  York,  one  of  the  earliest 
of  schools  to  introduce  from  Germany  the  educa- 
tional ideas  whose  later  developments  found  expres- 
sion in  the  kindergarten. 

She  was  looking  forward  cheerfully  to  the  unevent- 
ful life  of  a  teacher,  when  Richard  Armstrong, 
vivacious,  impassioned,  and  demonstrative,  a  true 
Irishman  and  her  very  antithesis,  captured  her 
heart  and  persuaded  her  that  the  Divine  call  to 
which  he  had  listened  was  addressed  to  her  also. 
Neither  dreamed  that  the  future  held  worldly 
success  and  influence  for  them;  it  was  the  love  of 
God  and  a  desire  for  the  coming  of  His  kingdom 
that  alone  gave  them  courage  as  they  set  sail  west- 
ward on  board  the  brig  Thaddeus  on  a  dark  Novem- 
ber day  in  1831.  Mutiny  on  board  the  ship,  and, 
owing  to  head  winds  and  consequent  delay,  a  lack 
of  provisions,  made  the  voyage  a  severe  tax  on  the 
endurance  of  the  young  bride  and  groom ;  the  only 
pleasant  incident  recorded  by  Mrs.  Armstrong  in 
her  journal  of  this  voyage  is  the  stop  for  repairs  at 
Rio  Janeiro.  Of  this  she  wrote : 

"How  delightful  it  was!  The  green  grass,  the  fresh 
fruits !  It  was  indeed  paradise ;  but  the  trail  of  the 
serpent  was  there.  On  an  open  space  I  saw  a  long 
trail  of  black  men,  miserably  clad,  chained  together, 
while  beside  them  were  others  with  great  bags  of  coffee 
on  their  heads,  chanting  a  mournful  lay.  From  that 
day  my  sympathies  went  out  to  the  poor  slaves  every- 
where, but  little  did  I  think  I  should  live  to  rear  a  son 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  7 

who  should  lead  the  freedmen  to  victory  in  the  great 
contest  which  should  come  in  future  years." 

At  last  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Armstrong  reached  the  port 
of  Honolulu  in  safety  and  began  their  work  of 
preaching  and  teaching  there. 

At  the  end  of  a  year,  in  which  a  daughter  was 
born  to  them,  they  were  sent  on  a  dangerous  mis- 
sion to  the  Marquesas  Islands,  inhabited  by  canni- 
bals, where  they  lived  a  year  in  friendliest  relation 
to  these  fierce  folk,  and  succeeded  in  holding  in 
check  their  cannibal  habits.  Here  their  second 
child,  who  lived  but  a  short  time,  was  born.  That 
husband  and  wife  were  made  of  hardy  stuff  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Armstrong,  when  compelled 
to  return  to  Honolulu  for  a  short  time,  left  his  wife, 
infant  son,*  and  little  daughter  in  charge  of  a 
cannibal  chief,  who  was,  as  Mrs.  Armstrong  noted 
in  a  letter,  "  indescribably  horrible  in  appearance," 
but  who  guarded  them  in  safety  for  weeks  by  lying 
in  front  of  their  tent  every  night. 

Owing  to  its  peculiar  difficulties  they  were  unable 
to  make  permanent  impressions  at  this  post,  and 
foreseeing  reversion  to  cannibal  habits,  were  recalled 
to  Honolulu,  only  to  be  sent  away  in  a  few  days  to 
the  island  of  Maui,  a  distance  of  three  days'  journey 
by  water  from  Honolulu. 

Here  was  a  more  promising  field  for  labour. 
Maui  was  a  thickly  settled,  fertile  district,  inhabited 

*Born  while  in  the  Marquesas  Islands,  and  named  by  the 
parents  after  their  ferocious  friend,  Hapi. 


8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

by  a  gentle,  willing  people  who  flocked  gladly  to 
listen  to  their  new  teacher.  Here  Richard  Armstrong 
remained  for  seven  years,  and  here  his  peculiar 
administrative  powers  found  full  play.  Besides 
the  duties  of  his  pastorate,  he  assumed  the  medical 
oversight  of  his  flock  of  25,000  natives  and  the 
organization  and  superintendence  of  schools  for 
1,700  children.  He  saw  the  need  of  steady  indus- 
trial occupation  for  the  natives,  and  it  was  through 
him  that  the  first  sawmills  and  sugar  plantations 
on  the  island  of  Maui  were  started.  He  foresaw 
the  need  of  diversified  crops,  and  instructed  the 
natives  in  the  first  principles  of  tilling  the  land,  which 
had  been  heretofore  untouched  by  them,  since  their 
simple  desires  were  satisfied  with  its  natural  fruits. 
His  son  Samuel  writes  later  of  this  time : 

"[My  father]  used  to  tell  us  of  the  two  churches 
that  he  built  here,  one  over  each  [missionary]  station, 
each  to  hold  1,500  people.  He  planned  and  super- 
intended the  whole  work  without  any  carpenter.  The 
timbers  of  the  roof  were  hewn  far  up  on  the  mountains, 
brought  down  on  the  backs  of  natives,  and  placed  on 
walls  Df  broken  stone  laid  in  mortar  made  from  coral 
brought  up  from  the  sea  by  native  divers.  Once, 
when  a  storm  destroyed  the  work  of  months,  the  people, 
led  by  their  chief,  went  willingly  to  the  mountains  and 
began  again.  Although  my  father  nearly  broke  down 
here,  yet  afterward,  when  in  the  service  of  the  Govern- 
ment, he  spoke  of  these  as  the  happiest  days  of  his  life, 
for  his  own  hardships  were  forgotten  in  remembering 
how  gladly  the  people  heard  and,  in  their  weakness, 
followed  like  children." 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  9 

While  the  Armstrongs  were  at  Maui  a  strange 
incident  of  history  occurred,  and  one  in  which  they 
themselves  bore  no  small  part.  For  twenty  years 
the  Hawaiian  people  had  been  listening  patiently 
to  the  teachings  of  Christian  missionaries,  many 
becoming  converts;  but  no  impression  was  made 
on  the  mass  of  the  people  till  the  years  1838  and 
1839,  when  a  series  of  waves  of  religious  enthusiasm 
swept  the  whole  nation,  as  it  were,  into  the  Christian 
fold  in  a  day.  Rulers,  chiefs,  and  people  resigned 
their  heathen  beliefs,  asking  only  to  be  taught  the 
law  of  Christ. 

During  the  great  revival  Richard  and  Clarissa 
Armstrong  worked  with  all  their  might  to  secure 
and  intensify  good  results.  If  any  were  skeptical 
of  the  value  of  this  hothouse  Christianity  they  were 
not  of  them,  and,  like  the  Church  at  home,  they 
regarded  the  conversion  of  numbers  as  the  proof  of 
missionary  success.  While  the  husband  and  father 
addressed  great  meetings,  the  wife  and  mother,  in 
spite  of  the  care  of  her  five  children  and  her 
prospect  of  again  becoming  a  mother,  found  time 
and  strength  to  gather  the  women  about  her 
nightly  and  exhort  them  earnestly  to  a  better  life, 
or  to  address  large  audiences,  when  occasion  de- 
manded. Who  shall  say  that  her  son  was  not 
influenced  by  that  time  of  spiritual  upheaval  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  was  born? 

Richard  Armstrong's  years  at  Maui  had  revealed 
to  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 


io  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Foreign  Missions,  who  stood  in  loco  parentis  to  the 
missionaries  in  the  field,  his  administrative  skill, 
and  in  1840  he  was  moved  from  Maui  to  Honolulu 
and  installed  in  charge  of  the  First  Church,  attended 
by  a  large  native  congregation. 

In  order  to  understand  the  influences  that  sur- 
rounded Samuel  Armstrong's  childhood,  one  must 
glance  at  the  history  of  the  relation  between  the 
plastic,  pleasure-loving  native  and  the  stern  New 
England  teacher,  who  would  have  about  him  equal 
rights  for  all  and  a  wholesome  theory  of  sober  and 
righteous  living,  based,  perhaps,  rather  on  New 
England  than  on  tropical  conditions.  The  period 
of  1820  to  1840  had  been  throughout  a  period  of 
great  change  for  the  Hawaiian  people.  They  had 
gradually  embraced  Christianity,  established  courts 
of  justice,  granted  universal  suffrage  with  slight 
property  qualifications,  established  a  system  of 
schools  throughout  the  islands  so  that  in  1835  the 
natives  who  could  read  and  write  were  numbered 
by  thousands,  and  passed  laws  against  drinking, 
gambling,  Sabbath-breaking,  and  social  vice  which 
would  have  done  credit  to  a  New  England  village 
and  which  were  at  times  enforced.  These  changes, 
which  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  been  hundreds  of 
years  in  making,  were  consummated  in  twenty  by 
the  aid  of  the  second  and  third  Kamchamehas, 
whose  beneficent  rule  culminated  in  the  year  1839 
in  the  passage  of  a  bill  of  rights  which  established 
the  right  of  the  common  people  to  hold  land,  a 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  n 

right  heretofore  the  prerogative  of  kings  and  chiefs, 
and  the  liberty  to  worship  how  and  where  they 
would.  These  rulers,  themselves  fairly  attentive 
hearers  of  the  words  of  the  missionaries,  were  the 
first  to  embrace  Christianity  and  to  teach  it  to 
their  people. 

But  however  zealous  the  chiefs  and  however 
zealous  the  people,  the  improvement  in  manners 
and  morals  among  the  natives  did  not  keep  pace 
with  the  improvement  in  civil  government  and 
forms  of  worship.  The  King,  followed  by  chiefs 
and  people,  wavered  between  the  good  influences 
that  in  the  main  governed  their  public  course  and 
the  temptations  of  their  sensual  Polynesian  natures. 
In  a  land  where  fish,  fruit  and  the  taro  could  be  had 
with  little  toil,  habits  of  industry  were  not  indis- 
pensable to  happiness.  Like  the  old-time  Negroes, 
they  made  their  religion  their  chief  business  in  life ; 
like  them,  they  delighted  in  "  speaking  in  meeting," 
and  were  born  orators;  but  they  found  a  strict 
adherence  to  the  Ten  Commandments  on  week- 
days rather  burdensome.  "The  heathen  saint  is 
about  up  to  your  New  England  sinner,"  as  Arm- 
strong remarked  later.  Where  one-roomed  huts, 
•with  perhaps  a  curtain  for  the  guest,  were  the 
rule,  no  high  standard  of  social  morality  could 
be  expected. 

To  complicate  the  problem  of  dealing  justly  and 
effectively  with  this  simple  people,  drink,  vice,  and 
diseases  heretofore  unknown  in  Hawaii  were  being 


12  Samtiel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

introduced  by  the  crews  of  whaling  vessels.  More- 
over, the  beauty,  fertility  and  commercial  advan- 
tages of  these  islands  had  from  the  first  attracted 
scheming  men,  sometimes  working  in  the  name  of 
a  foreign  government,  sometimes  independently, 
but  always  for  the  furtherance  of  their  own  plans. 
The  governments  of  Great  Britain  and  France  saw 
the  advantage  to  the  United  States  in  the  political 
ascendency  of  the  missionaries  and  strove  to  coun- 
teract it  at  court  and  among  the  people,  each 
through  its  agents  attempting  by  force  to  gain 
possession  of  the  islands.  Many  Americans  also, 
opposed  to  the  aims  of  the  missionaries,  and  fore- 
seeing in  their  control  possible  hindrances  to 
their  own  plans,  allied  themselves  with  the  anti- 
missionary  party. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  that  a  group  of  men,  originally  non-political 
in  their  relations  to  the  natives,  should  have  become 
allied  closely  with  the  governing  forces.  Church  and 
state  were  never  more  completely  one  than  in 
Hawaii  under  missionary  influence.  There  are 
many  instances  in  the  history  of  heathen  countries 
of  dishonest  and  ambitious  white  men  who  have 
played  on  the  vices  of  native  rulers  to  further  their 
own  selfish  ends,  but  few,  if  any,  except  in  Hawaii, 
of  white  men  of  a  high  type  who  have  accepted 
responsible  positions  in  the  king's  gift  and  worked 
with  and  through  him  for  his  people.  In  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  the  highest  political  positions, 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  13 

such  as  Minister  of  Finance  and  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, were  filled  by  missionaries.  It  was  into  a 
complicated  political  and  social  situation  that 
Richard  Armstrong  found  himself  transferred  by 
his  removal  to  Honolulu. 

He  began  his  work  simply  as  a  preacher,  but 
his  interests  and  ability  soon  drew  him  (in  1840) 
into  public  life,  though  he  never  gave  up  his  public 
preaching,  partly  in  deference  to  the  wishes  of  the 
Missionary  Board,  who  did  not  encourage  much 
devotion  to  secular  affairs,  and  partly  because  he 
wished  to  retain  a  direct  hold  on  the  natives.* 

Samuel's  childhood,  like  the  prime  of  his  father's 
life,  was  spent  in  the  midst  of  the  clash  of  political 
parties,  but  he  grew  up  all  unconscious  of  it.  To 
him  the  conversion  of  the  natives  and  the  fatherly 
kindness  and  self-sacrifice  shown  by  the  missionary 
teachers  appeared  dominant,  and  if  he  thought  of 


*  At  the  time  of  his  death  the  reigning  king,  Kamehameha, 
wrote  describing  his  services  to  the  natives  as  follows. 

"  Doctor  Armstrong  has  been  spoken  of  as  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction  and  subsequently  President  of  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion, but  we  have  only  partly  described  the  Important  offices 
which  he  filled.  He  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Nobles 
and  of  the  King's  Privy  Council,  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees  of  Oahu  College,  Trustee  of  the  Queen's  Hospital, 
executive  officer  of  the  Bible  and  Tract  Society,  and  deeply 
interested  in  developing  the  agricultural  resources  of  the  king- 
dom. 

"No  other  government  officer  or  missionary  was  brought 
into  such  close  intimacy  with  the  native  as  a  whole.  Although 
his  week-day  duties  were  so  abundant  and  onerous,  he  never 
spared  himself  as  a  minister  of  the  Gospel.  He  was  an  eloquent 
preacher  in  the  Hawaiian  language,  and  was  always  listened  to 
with  deep  interest  by  the  people  in  whose  welfare  he  took  so 
deep  an  interest.  Nearly  every  Sabbath  his  voice  was  to  be 
heard  in  some  one  of  the  pulpits  of  the  land." 


14  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

their  opposers,  it  was  as  bad  men  representing 
Satan  in  the  world,  with  whom  he  need  not  hold 
any  intercourse.  So  the  missionary  children,  a 
colony  large  enough  for  play  independent  of  other 
Caucasian  youngsters  who  might  be  about,  enjoyed 
themselves  in  their  own  little  world. 

Honolulu  in  1840  was  a  small  town  with  a  cluster 
of  mercantile  houses  and  grog-shops,  where  fifty 
to  a  hundred  whalers  called  annually  for  supplies, 
and  where  some  commerce  in  sandalwood  was  still 
carried  on. 

A  little  way  back  from  the  water,  toward 
the  mountains,  were  the  mission  houses,  built 
of  adobe  or  wood,  the  houses  of  the  higher 
chiefs,  and  the  old  palace  where  the  Kamehamehas 
reigned  in  a  sort  of  opera-bouffe  grandeur.  The 
town  boasted  but  two  other  buildings  of  impor- 
tance— a  brick  schoolhouse  for  the  children  of 
foreign  residents,  and  Richard  Armstrong's  church, 
the  Kawaiahao,  a  great  coral-built  edifice  then  in 
process  of  erection. 

The  Armstrong  home,  "  Stone  House,"  was  one 
of  the  pleasantest  in  Honolulu;  set  well  back  in  a 
fine  grove  and  garden,  it  sheltered  comfortably  the 
eight  children  who  grew  to  manhood  and  woman- 
hood there. 

Samuel  Armstrong's  brightest  recollections  of 
his  home  centered  in  his  merry,  blue-eyed  father, 
who  had  always  a  smile  and  a  caress  for  the  clus- 
tering young  ones — "silent,  tranquil,  patient,  and 


THE    ENTRANCE   TO    STONE    HOUSE   AT   HONOLULU 


Hawaiian  Life.    J839-J860  15 

loving,"  as  one  of  the  younger  children  describes 
him;  alert,  wiry,  always  busy,  he  carried  on  all  his 
duties  with  a  light  heart.  All  the  mission  children 
loved  him,  and  he  was  the  first  to  gather  them  into 
a  class  for  the  purpose  of  learning  the  Hawaiian 
language — a  step  which  was  regarded  with  suspicion 
by  many  of  the  mission  mothers,  who  feared  lest 
knowledge  of  the  Hawaiian  tongue  might  bring  their 
boys  into  too  close  contact  with  that  easy-going 
native  life  which  represented  to  their  minds  such 
fearful  laxity  of  morals.  But  Richard  Armstrong 
was  less  afraid  that  the  young  people  would  be 
contaminated  by  contact  with  the  Hawaiians  than 
that  they  should  fail  to  understand  that  race  with 
which  they  were  to  have  to  deal  in  the  future,  and 
so  in  spite  of  the  frowns  of  the  mothers  the  class 
went  on. 

Stone  House  might  have  been  a  rendezvous  for 
the  missionary  children  were  it  not  for  a  certain 
awe  which  Mrs.  Armstrong  unconsciously  inspired 
as  she  moved  with  stately  dignity  about  her  work. 
Her  unsmiling  mien  constrained  them  and  they 
went  elsewhere  for  their  little  games.  It  was 
a  stern  household,  where  the  rod  was  not  spared, 
and  where  many  instincts,  now  called  natural, 
were,  after  the  manner  of  the  day,  repressed.  But 
in  it  justice,  truth  and  respect  for  duty  were  thor- 
oughly inculcated.  Both  parents  had  been  trained 
in  other  households,  where  right  was  put  before 
pleasure,  and  both  had  encountered  such  stress  in 


16  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

life  that  moral  strength  appeared  to  them  the 
greatest  need  of  the  growing  mind. 

Mrs.  Armstrong's  serious  manner  was  the  result 
not  only  of  a  certain  Puritan  habit  of  repression,  but 
of  an  intense  moral  earnestness.  Besides  the  care 
of  her  large  family,  she  was  deeply  interested  in 
work  for  the  native  Hawaiians.  She  conducted 
sewing  and  Bible  classes,  and  gathered  about  her 
the  lowest  outcasts  of  Chinatown,  urging  the 
women  to  leave  their  lives  of  sin.  Her  training  in 
the  science  of  education  gave  her  a  peculiar  interest 
in  matters  pertaining  to  the  home  and  to  women 
and  children,  and*  to  them  she  mainly  devoted  her 
energies.  "She  was  a  worker,"  said  one  who  knew 
her  well  at  this  time;  "her  great  characteristic 
was  to  do  her  work  truthfully  and  well  and  to 
seize  on  opportunities." 

In  such  a  home-setting  one  can  imagine  little 
Samuel  barefooted,  clad  in  faded  blue  denim, 
among  his  crowd  of  brothers  and  sisters  and  play- 
mates, blond  and  slim,  full  of  his  father's  fun, 
with  long,  shaggy  hair  tossed  back  from  dancing 
eyes,  rushing  in  and  out  of  the  water  after  his  little 
boats,  to  make  and  sail  which  was  the  greatest 
delight  of  Honolulu  boys,  with  their  facilities  of 
reef-locked  harbour  and  constant  trade-wind.  As 
marbles,  chess,  and  cards  were  not  allowed, 
and  as  football  was  unknown,  baseball  (in  which 
Samuel  was  never  proficient),  swimming,  sailing 
and  riding  were  the  sports  among  boys,  followed, 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-I860  17 

as  the  players  advanced  from  the  age  of  blue  denim 
trousers  into  that  of  great  care  for  neckties,  by 
choir  practice,  debating  clubs,  and  horseback 
rides  by  night.  There  were  glorious  dashes  over 
the  moonlit  sands,  twenty  or  thirty  couples  of  boys 
and  girls  abreast,  when  the  game  was  to  have  one 
extra  man,  then  break  the  ranks  and  let  all  try 
for  a  place  in  the  line  with  one  of  the  girls.  There 
were  week-long  excursions  and  upward  dashes  to 
the  cool  mountain-tops,  where  the  cataracts  had 
their  birth  and  whence  one  could  overlook  the  ocean 
rising  on  all  sides  to  the  level  of  the  eye  like  a  great 
blue  saucer.  "He  was  a  high-spirited  youth,"  says 
one  who  knew  young  Armstrong  well  in  those 
times,  "with  an  abrupt  manner  of  looking  up, 
shaking  his  hair  from  his  eyes.  He  used  to  say 
that  he  would  be  a  politician  or  a  business  man- 
that  he  would  be  a  philanthropist  was  the  furthest 
from  our  thoughts." 

His  childhood  and  boyhood  are  best  described 
in  his  own  words,  written  in  a  chapter  of  reminis- 
cences by  him  some  forty  years  later,  in  which  the 
circumstances  of  that  far-away  childhood  appear 
more  idyllic  for  the  lapse  of  years. 

"For  several  summers  after  our  arrival  in  Honolulu 
we  spent  some  months  at  Makawao,  high  up  on  Halea- 
kala,  at  Mr.  McLane's  sugar  plantation,  where  the 
view  of  mountain  and  ocean  was  magnificent.  Here 
donkey-riding,  eating  sugar-cane,  hanging  round  the 
sugar-house,  bathing  in  the  deep  gulches,  and  exploring 


1 8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

the  wild  country  and  tropic  forests  filled  what  were 
the  happiest  days  of  our  lives.  How  exciting  it  was 
when  we  were  pulled  round  into  Maalea  Bay  in  whale- 
boats  or  sailed  in  the  Maria,  and  Captain  Hobson, 
in  default  of  a  white  flag,  sent  one  of  father's  shirts  up 
to  the  masthead,  to  announce  the  arrival  of  a  mis- 
sionary party.  With  our  belongings  we  were  piled 
into  ox-carts,  and  after  five  hours'  slow  pulling  up 
the  sides  of  Haleakala  would  at  last  reach  'Makawao,' 
to  be  greeted  by  the  smiling  Hawaiian  housewife, 
'Maile.'  In  those  days  the  natives  brought  their 
kumu  (teacher)  their  accustomed  tribute  of  fruit, 
vegetables,  chickens,  etc.,  thus  eking  out  the  small 
salary  of  (I  believe)  $300  for  each  couple  and  $50  extra 
for  each  child.  Those  were  days  of  cheerful  greetings, 
youthful  rejoicings,  and  fatherly  benedictions,  when 
the  people  came — in  a  minimum  of  costume — from 
far  and  near  with  bananas,  sugar-cane,  guavas,  cocoa- 
nuts,  and  delicious  ohia. 

"The  large  crop  of  small  boys  that  swarmed  about 
the  mission  had  the  usual  piratical  instincts  of  their 
kind,  and  although  we  were  all  subjected  to  the  severest 
Puritanic  discipline,  we  managed  to  execute  occasional 
raids  on  the  barrel  of  lump  sugar  in  the  mission  deposi- 
tory when  good  Mr.  Cooke  and  Mr.  Castle  were  not 
looking.  The  'Maternal  Association'  took  up  the 
more  hopeless  cases  of  those  who  played  checkers  or 
said  '  By  George ! '  The  boys  were  thrown  into  con- 
vulsions when  one  of  our  number  reported  hearing  an 
excited  missionary  father  say  '  By  Jingo ! ' 

"We  had  one  real  luxury — that  of  being  barefooted 
all  the  year  round,  wearing  shoes  on  Sunday  only,  and 
then  under  protest.  The  Sunday  morning  cleaning- 
up  and  dressing  was  looked  forward  to  with  dread, 
as  our  sympathies  were  all  with  the  natives,  who,  in 


Hawaiian  Life*     J839-J860  19 

the  early  days,  took  off  their  clothes  when  it  rained, 
so  that  a  shower  as  church  was  closing  produced  an 
extraordinary  scene.  The  material  of  our  usual  gar- 
ments was  a  blue  denim  of  the  cheapest  kind,  which, 
to  allow  for  the  growth  of  the  wearer,  was  made  with 
two  or  three  tucks  in  the  trousers  legs.  These  being 
successively  let  out  after  many  washings,  made  a  series 
of  humiliating  bright  blue  bands  about  our  ankles. 
I  can  remember  wearing  aprons,  which  I  took  every 
opportunity  to  discard,  although  I  invariably  came 
to  grief  from  so  doing,  as  the  rod  in  those  days  was 
laid  on  freely. 

"  Molasses-and-water  was  bliss  to  us,  and  ginger- 
cake  was  too  good  to  be  true.  .  .  .  We  went 
barefoot,  we  were  hungry,  and  felt  the  ferule  about 
our  hands  and  shoulders,  and  had  our  lunches  stolen 
by  the  other  hungry  boys,  and  had  prayer  meeting 
out  among  the  rocks,  and  learned  seven  honest  verses 
by  heart  for  Sunday-school,  besides  the  catechism  at 
home.  The  small  boy  of  to-day  tries  to  be  a  gentle- 
man, which  we  never  dreamed  of;  our  ambition  was, 
after  getting  out  of  sight  of  home,  to  throw  away  our 
last  vestment — the  checked  apron  fastened  around 
our  necks  by  fond  mothers — and  then  in  native  rollick- 
ing freedom  delight  in  sea,  in  salt  ponds  and  wild 
mountains. 

"We  went  to  Mr.  Castle's  Sunday-school  and  also 
to  the  'Bethel.'  We  were  required  to  recite  seven 
Bible  verses  to  Mr.  Castle,  and  to  bow  as  we  went  out, 
which  later  ceremony  was  particularly  obnoxious  to 
us  and  gave  rise  to  much  cutting-up.  I  was  a  pupil  at 
the  'Bethel '  of  General  Marshall  and  Mr.  C.  R.  Bishop, 
and  from  them  received  my  first  instruction  in  'Let 
dogs  delight  to  bark. and  bite,'  etc. 

"Father's  chief  work  was  preaching,  and  I  am  sorry 


20  Samuel  Chapman  Atmsttong 

to  say  that,  although  we  always  attended  the  services, 
the  part  we  took  in  them  was  sometimes  far  from 
creditable.  We  usually  sat  with  mother,  and  were 
kept  quiet  by  frequent  gingerbread,  but  I  remember 
that  once  father  took  two  of  us  into  the  pulpit  and  was 
obliged  to  interrupt  his  sermon  in  order  to  settle  a 
quarrel  between  us.  But  nothing  disturbed  the  equa- 
nimity of  the  natives,  not  even  the  dog-fights,  which 
were  of  frequent  occurrence,  for  they  doted  on  dogs, 
often  bringing  them  to  church  in  their  arms,  while  the 
children  toddled  on  behind. 

"These  dogs  were  a  perpetual  trial.  I  have  seen 
deacons  with  long  sticks  probing  after  the  wretched 
curs  as  they  dodged  under  the  seats,  the  preacher 
scolding  roundly  the  while,  and  not  a  smile  in  the 
congregation. 

"But  the  services  were  interesting.  Sometimes 
when  I  stand  outside  a  Negro  church  I  get  precisely 
the  effect  of  a  Hawaiian  congregation,  the  same  fulness 
and  heartiness  and  occasional  exquisite  voices,  and 
am  instantly  transplanted  10,000  miles  away,  to  the 
great  Kawaiahao  church  where  father  used  to  preach 
to  2,500  people,  who  swarmed  in  on  foot  and  horse- 
back from  shore  and  valley  and  mountain  for  many 
miles  around. 

' '  Outside  it  was  like  an  encampment ;  inside  it  was 
a  sea  of  dusky  faces.  On  one  side  was  the  King's 
pew,  with  scarlet  hangings;  the  royal  family  always 
distinguishing  themselves  by  coming  in  very  late, 
with  the  loudest  of  squeaking  shoes.  The  more  the 
shoes  squeaked  the  better  was  the  wearer  pleased, 
and  often  a  man,  after  walking  noisily  in,  would  sit 
down  and  pass  his  shoes  through  the  window  for 
his  wife  to  wear  in,  thus  doubling  the  family  glory. 
Non-musical  shoes  were  hardly  salable. 


Hawaiian  Life*    1839- J860  21 

"One  of  my  earliest  and  most  vivid  recollections  is 
of  moving  into  'Stone  House,'  which  was  built  of  coral 
and  stood  at  the  foot  of  'Punch  Bowl,'  an  extinct 
crater,  from  the  summit  of  which  a  royal  battery  of 
fifteen  sixty-pounders  often  fired  national  salutes, 
which  were  answered  by  ships  of  war  in  the  harbour 
below,  making  the  windows  and  dishes  rattle.  Although 
the  guns  were  all  pointed  in  the  air  and  could  not  by 
any  possibility  hurt  anybody  but  the  careless  artillery- 
men, I  thought  the  place  impregnable.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  couple  of  pirates  could  have  captured  the 
whole  affair,  for  the  garrison  slept  all  night,  and  a  half- 
dozen  resolute  midnight  cats  might  have  scared  them 
into  instantaneous  surrender. 

"One  of  our  great  delights  here  was  that  .we  had 
plenty  of  white  pine  for  making  miniature  ships,  which 
we  sailed  in  the  salt  ponds  and  in  the  quiet  waters 
within  the  reef,  and  for  sawing  into  blocks  to  represent 
soldiers,  wherewith  my  brother  Will  and  I  had  many 
a  pitched  battle  in  the  garret.  Our  heroes  were  those 
of  the  Mexican  war — just  over — and  we  fired  our  powder 
and  shot  out  of  little  leaden  cannon.  The  necessity 
of  earning  our  pocket  money  kept  us  on  the  lookout 
for  profitable  chances,  but  our  fun  was  none  the  less 
joyful  because  we  had  to  work  for  it. 

"  Our  herd  of  cattle,  twelve  in  number,  were  quartered 
at  night  in  the  cow-pen  in  the  back  yard,  the  sucking 
calves  being  penned  by  themselves.  Will,  Baxter 
and  I  did  the  milking,  for  which  father  roused  us  every 
morning.  There  was  no  bringing  up  of  calves  by  hand ; 
we  had  not  even  a  barn;  the  herd  was  driven  to  the 
mountains  and  watched  all  day  by  a  Kanaka  cow- 
boy, who  slept  most  of  the  time,  and  then  were  driven 
in  at  sundown,  half  wild  and  altogether  unwilling  to 
be  milked.  We  did  not  get  much  milk  per  cow,  and 


22  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

spent  a  good  deal  of  time  in  fierce  combat  with  the  calves. 
This  did  not  meet  the  views  of  our  American-bred 
parents,  who  gave  us  a  series  of  alarming  facts  in  regard 
to  New  England  cows  and  the  boys  who  milked  them 
— abnormal  boys  who  'loved  work.'  I  may  say,  indeed, 
that  we  were  brought  up  on  New  England  boys,  and  I 
can  well  remember  the  interest  with  which  we  watched 
the  first  importation  into  Honolulu  of  these  marvels, 
and  our  delight  when  we  discovered  that  they  were 
even  lazier  than  we  were — that  not  one  of  them  liked  to 
get  up  early  or  preferred  toil  to  play.  Inspiration  from 
that  quarter,  by  which  we  had  been  so  often  shamed 
into  laborious  days,  was  thenceforth  'played  out.' 
In  the  general  mission  cow-pen,  much  larger  than 
ours,  I  used  to  think  that  I  could  tell  to  whom  the  cows 
belonged  by  their  resemblance  to  their  owners;  in  a 
few  cases  I  was  sure  of  this.  We  had  no  stables,  and 
out  in  the  wild  pasture  had  to  catch  with  the  lasso 
every  horse  we  rode;  and  everybody  rode — men,  women 
and  children;  the  latter  sometimes,  as  in  our  case, 
beginning  humbly  on  calves  and  donkeys.  The  natives 
were  passionately  fond  of  riding,  and  would  walk  a 
mile  to  catch  a  horse  to  ride  half  a  mile.  The  women 
bestrode  horses  like  men,  but  with  long  scarfs  of  bril- 
liant calico  draping  either  leg  and  streaming  behind 
them  in  the  breeze.  Saturday  was  their  gala  day, 
and  the  streets  were  filled  with  gay  cavalcades  of  happy 
Hawaiians.  We  played  baseball,  but  not  in  the 
American  fashion;  and  'I  spy'  was  a  favorite  game, 
especially  when  we  could  play  it  in  the  graveyard. 
Nothing,  however,  was  more  permanently  popular  than 
swimming  in  the  great  deep  mountain-basins,  of  which 
Kapena  Falls  answered  our  purpose  best.  The  great 
feat  was  to  jump  from  the  cliff,  some  forty  feet,  into 
the  depths  below,  where  we  played  like  fishes.  A 


FAMILY  GROUP-  SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG  AT  THE  AGE  OF  18 


Hawaiian  Life*     J839-J860  23 

horseback  tour  round  the  island  of  Oahu  was  a  great 
lark,  with  the  races  on  the  long,  lovely  sea-beach  and 
the  nights  at  Kaneohe,  Kualoa  and  Waialua. 

"My  brother  Baxter's  cattle-ranch  at  Waimanalo 
was  a  favorite  and  beautiful  resort;  it  was  a  little 
kingdom  by  the  sea,  bounded  by  the  ocean  and  moun- 
tains. It  was  exciting  to  jump  into  a  cattle-pen  with 
a  lasso  and  catch  a  young  steer  by  the  horns,  while 
another  lassoed  his  hind  leg  and  a  third  pulled  him  over 
and  branded  him.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  released, 
and  then  a  race  for  the  fence  ensued  to  keep  out  of  the 
way  of  his  fury.  Though  we  did  this  dozens  of  times, 
I  do  not  think  that  any  one  of  us  was  ever  hurt." 

The  boy  kept  a  journal  of  his  vacations  from  his 
twelfth  to  his  eighteenth  year,  and  from  these  a 
few  extracts  follow,  written  when  he  was  twelve 
years  of  age,  while  taking  a  school-inspecting  trip 
with  his  father. 

1 '  July  15,  1851.  Left  for  Kau  in  a  canoe.  We  went  to 
Kealea  and  had  a  short  meeting  and  then  went  on  to 
Kaohe,  where  we  slept.  In  the  morning  we  had  a  look 
about  the  country;  it  was  very  green.  The  house 
where  we  slept  was  an  excellent  native  house;  it  was 
clean  and  neat. 

"July  1 6th.  Father  examined  some  schools.  A 
great  many  canoes  came  in.  In  the  afternoon  we  started 
in  the  canoe  for  Kapua ;  we  arrived  a  little  before  sunset. 
This  place  is  very  rocky.  They  have  some  goats  here. 

"July  1 7th.  About  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
we  started  for  Kau  on  foot.  Father  was  sick,  and  so 
he  rode  an  ox;  it  was  very  lazy  indeed.  Our  road 
was  rocky,  especially  the  first  part.  During  the  latter 


24  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

part  we  went  through  large  groves  of  trees.  After  a 
walk  of  about  five  and  a  half  hours  we  arrived  at  a 
native  house,  where  we  had  a  little  rest  and  then  started 
on.  The  road  was  good  and  the  walk  was  pleasant,  only 
we  were  rather  tired.  There  were  several  small  grass 
houses  along  the  road  for  people  to  sleep  in  who  went 
on  the  road.  When  we  got  to  the  borders  of  Kau, 
father  lay  down  and  I  and  two  native  boys  went  ahead. 
We  had  gone  some  way  when  we  met  the  horses.  I 
took  one  and  went  on.  I  got  to  Kau  about  five  o'clock. 
The  rest  of  the  company  got  there  at  six.  Kau  is  a 
very  green  place.  We  have  grapevines,  figs,  sugar- 
cane, potatoes,  and  many  nice  fruits. 

"July  22d.  The  native  schools  were  examined. 
They  study  principally  reading  and  arithmetic.  In 
the  afternoon  we  went  up  on  the  hill  to  slide.  We  had 
bananas  to  slide  on.  We  would  balance  ourselves  and 
then  shoot  down  the  hill  like  race-horses. 

"July  24th.     We  had  goat  for  dinner. 

"July  25th.  We  had  some  presents  from  the  natives 
of  fish,  kalo*  and  other  things.  We  had  some  fun  in 
the  evening  running  races. 

"July  27th.     Started  for  the  volcano  on  horseback. 

"July  28th.  The  smoke  of  the  volcano  soon  began 
to  appear;  also  Mauna  Loa.  After  we  had  gone  several 
miles  we  came  to  the  pahoehoe,  which  is  lava.  We  could 
distinguish  the  road  for  some  way,  but  at  last  it  got  lost. 
A  native  came  up  and  asked  to  be  our  guide.  He  took 
us  away  down  in  the  woods  and  then  up  again.  After 
a  while  we  came  in  sight  of  the  volcano;  it  looked  awful. 
We  went  on  to  the  house  and  slept. 

"July  3oth.  We  went  down  about  noon  and  visited 
the  volcano.  There  was  not  any  fire.  We  got  some 
strawberries." 

*  Equivalent  of  taro. 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  25 

It  was  a  childhood  of  almost  ideal  advantage 
for  any  man,  but  especially  for  Armstrong,  in  whose 
after-life  time  for  recuperation  and  enjoyment  was 
more  than  usually  limited.  It  gave  him  a  delight 
in  Nature,  in  the  simple  pleasures  of  life,  and  in 
bodily  exercise  that  kept  the  balance  of  his  mind 
true  when  circumstances  impelled  him  toward 
one-sided  activity.  He  never  forgot  the  fun  of 
being  a  boy — never,  in  fact,  quite  got  over  being 
a  boy. 

He  watched  in  a  respectful,  interested  way 
the  drama  of  native  life  going  on  about  him. 

"The  high  chiefs — John  Young,  Kanaina,  Paki, 
Governor  Kekuanaua  and  others,  with  their  fat  wives — 
were  majestic  creatures,  towering  above  the  common 
people  and  foreigners,  but  'the  mighty  have  fallen,' 
and  when  Queen  Emma  and  Mrs.  Bishop  died  the  line 
became  extinct.  I  remember  the  royal  soire'es  at  the 
palace,  when  the  gorgeous  uniforms  and  noble  bearing 
of  these  chiefs  threw  foreign  diplomats  and  naval 
officers  into  the  shade.  We  mission  children  would 
join  the  throng  that  rallied  around  there  (the  old 
palace)  when  the  chiefs  stalked  majestically  around 
in  their  regimentals — grander  men  than  they  make 
in  these  days — and  soldiers  stood  around  in  imposing 
array  holding  old  flint-lock  muskets  as  harmless  as 
pop-guns,  while  the  band  played;  royal  fat  females 
paddled  from  room  to  room,  the  embodiment  of  serene 
dignity.  How  we  boys  did  not  dare  go  inside,  but 
looked  in  at  the  awful  ceremony  of  presentation  and 
wondered  why  people  didn't  sometimes  fall  down  dead 
in  awe  of  the  royal  presence  !  But  the  supreme  moment 


26  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

was  to  come.  The  banquet  hall  opened  and  in  marched 
kings  and  queens  and  nobles  and  dignitaries;  the 
famished  boys  did  not  dare  intrude,  but  their  turn 
came  by  and  by.  Father  got  on  capitally  with  this 
native  aristocracy;  they  always  expected  a  good  time 
when  he  appeared,  and  in  spite  of  his  occasional  severity 
they  truly  loved  him." 

Most  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  natives  was  gained  on  riding  trips  taken 
alone  or  with  his  father  among  them,  when,  in  the 
absence  of  hotels  or  hired  lodgings,  he  slept  night 
after  night  in  the  native  huts. 

"The  natives  were  all  kindness  to  friends  and  to 
those  who  trusted  them,"  he  writes.  "Father  used 
to  tell  us  of  a  walk  of  twenty  miles  which  he  took 
through  a  waterless  district,  when,  distressed  and  faint 
with  thirst,  he  came  upon  a  watermelon  in  the  road. 
After  some  hesitation  he  ate  it,  and  at  his  journey's 
end  met  a  native  who  asked  if  he  had  found  it  and  told 
him  he  left  it  there  for  him.  He  always  gave  his  purse 
to  his  guide  and  never  lost  anything. 

"Often  have  we  boys  halted  our  horses  before  their 
thatched  houses  and  been  greeted  with,  'Where  are 
you  from?'  After  the  reply,  the  universal  formula 
was,  without  regard  to  time  or  distance,  'Mama  oukou !' 
(You  have  come  swiftly.)  Next  the  question,  'Are 
you  hungry?'  to  which  there  was  but  one  answer, 
'Very  hungry.'  Then  a  stampede  of  the  household 
and  neighborhood  in  pursuit  of  some  fish,  pigs,  poultry 
and  vegetables,  cooked  underground  on  hot  stones, 
but  the  food  was  always  eaten  cold.  After  dismounting, 
we  would  lie  on  our  backs  on  the  mats  and  father's 


Hawaiian  Life.    J839-J860  27 

old  retainers  would  '  lomi-lomi '  the  fatigue  all  out  of 
us,  for  these  people  have,  it  is  claimed,  the  most  perfect 
massage  or  movement-cure  known.  It  is  part  of  their 
hospitality,  and  it  is  delicious." 

This  close  familiarity  with  the  natives  at  their 
homes  and  in  their  daily  lives  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  learn  the  characteristics  of  a  childish  race, 
weak,  yet  capable  of  development  under  wise 
leadership. 

To  know  a  race  intimately  and  accurately  does 
not  imply  a  desire  to  help  it.  The  young  Southerner 
is  reared  in  close  association  with  the  Negro;  the 
plainsman  knows  the  Indian;  but  Armstrong  ab- 
sorbed from  the  atmosphere  about  him  an  attitude 
of  protection  and  helpfulness  toward  the  weaker 
race.  The  conversation  of  his  elders  and  the  daily 
work  and  effort  of  those  whom  he  most  respected 
taught  him  that  it  is  not  enough  to  alone  under- 
stand, but  that  to  understand  in  order  to  pity  and 
to  serve  is  the  proper  attitude  of  a  Christian.  The 
missionary  fathers,  like  the  slaveholders,  practically 
regarded  the  Hawaiians  as  of  a  type  inferior  to 
themselves  so  far  as  mental  and  moral  fiber  was 
concerned ;  but  no  missionary  ever  lost  the  point  of 
view  that  the  soul  of  each  of  these  people  was  equal 
in  the  sight  of  the  Almighty  to  his  own,  and  though 
individuals  may  often  have  failed  in  discretion  and 
wisdom,  the  missionaries  as  a  whole  never  forgot 
the  thought,  the  mainspring  of  their  work,  that  to 
build  up  and  strengthen  a  human  soul  is  the  most 


28  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

important  work  that  a  man  can  do.  To  his 
early  absorption  of  this  idea  may  undoubtedly  be 
ascribed  Armstrong's  later  unquestioning  dedica- 
tion of  his  powers  to  philanthropic  work. 

Samuel  Armstrong  received  his  early  education 
at  the  "  Royal  School"  at  Punahou,  founded  in  1840 
for  the  training  of  the  young  chiefs.  Some  of  these 
dark-skinned  youth,  among  them  Kalakaua  and  his 
sister  Liliuokalani,  or  "  Lydia"  as  she  was  familiarly 
called,  who  later  became  king  and  queen,  were  his 
playmates;  but  the  Hawaiians,  scant  offspring  of  a 
declining  race,  were  soon  outnumbered  by  the  sturdy 
mission  children  who  were  admitted  to  the  school, 
and  in  time  the  Hawaiians  disappeared  from  it 
altogether. 

The  " Royal  School"  was  presided  over  by  the 
brothers  Edward  and  George  Beckwith,  who  suc- 
ceeded in  inspiring  their  scholars  with  a  real  interest 
in  study.  Armstrong  wrote  of  it  in  later  years : 

"I  have  never  since  seen  or  heard  of  such  a  school  as 
this  became.  Every  boy  and  girl  seemed  inspired  to 
learn,  and  we  played  as  hard  as  we  studied.  Our 
teachers  led  us  up  the  hill  of  science.  There  was  a 
moral  atmosphere,  a  Christian  influence  in  the  school 
which  permanently  affected  the  lives  of  most  of  the 
pupils.  I  regard  it  as  the  ideal  school  of  all  I  have 
ever  known  for  the  perfect  balance  of  its  mental  and 
moral  inspiration.  Under  Mr.  George  Beckwith,  a 
pupil  of  Doctor  Samuel  Taylor,  of  Andover,  and  a 


Hawaiian  Life*    I839-J860  29 

remarkably  fine  classical  scholar,  we  plunged  into  the 
mysteries  of  Latin  and  Greek." 

Some  manual  labor  was  required  of  all  the  pupils. 

"More  distinct  is  my  recollection  of  our  manual- 
labor  drill — I  did  not  then  have  it  on  the  brain.  How, 
required  to  hoe  our  patches  in  severalty  of  melons  or 
corn  or  summer  squash  till  we  could  count  seven 
stars,  we  studied  the  heavens  as  I  have  never  since 
done,  not  daring  to  shirk,  for  Mr.  Rice,  the  farmer,  was 
an  embodiment  of  firm,  kindly  discipline  that  I  have 
never  forgotten.  He  hit  us  hard  sometimes,  when 
delinquent,  but  was  always  fair.  How  I  hated  work 
then,  impatiently  digging  up  the  melon  seeds  to  see  if 
they  had  started !" 

That  he  took  a  genuine  pleasure  in  school  work 
is  shown  by  the  following  extracts  from  the  vacation 
journals.  A  boy  who  names  his  sail-boat  and  his 
horse  after  the  heroes  of  his  text-books,  and  studies 
his  Latin  grammar  before  breakfast  in  vacation,  has 
no  half-hearted  interest  in  his  studies. 

"HiLo,  Hawaii. 

"  November  27,  1857.  Friday.  This  A.M.  I  finished  my 
review  of  the  Greek  grammar  to  Section  133;  burrowed 
round  among  Doctor  Coan's  books  to  find  some  classical 
authors.  It  was  very  rainy  all  day  and  favorable  to 
study.  Delved  into  Telemaque  as  yesterday  and  read 
two  books.  .  .  .  Made  a  topmast  and  squaresail 
spar  for  the  Telemachus  preparatory  to  to-morrow's 
sailing.  The  evening  closed  early,  and  I  read  aloud  in 
'Peter  Parley's  Recollections  of  a  Lifetime'  most  of 


3°  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the    evening.       Read   C *    to    sleep    from   'Blair's 

Rhetoric.' 

"Saturday,  November  28th.  Commenced  this  morn- 
ing a  review  of  the  syntax  in  Andrews  and  Stoddard's 
Latin  grammar;  completed  three  pages  and  intended 

*A  delicate  sister. 

NOTE. — While  he  was  studying  at  Oahu  College  events 
occurred  which  perhaps  furnished  the  first  practical  test  of 
his  powers.  He  was  called  on  to  take  charge  of  a  geometry 
class  whose  regular  teacher,  one  of  the  principals,  had  been 
obliged  to  give  it  up  for  a  time.  This  incident  is  described  by 
one  of  the  pupils  thus:  "It  required  no  little  tact  for  an  under- 
graduate to  take  charge  of  a  class  under  such  circumstances. 
But  Armstrong  seemed  equal  to  any  emergency.  On  the  play- 
ground he  was  the  leading  spirit  in  all  athletic  exercises,  and 
was  the  undisputed  champion  in  the  game  of  wicket,  in  which 
his  side  seemed  always  victorious. 

"  On  taking  the  class  in  geometry,  from  the  very  first 
he  began  to  inspire  us  with  some  of  his  own  enthusiasm. 
Coming  in  from  a  hotly  contested  game  of  wicket,  he 
looked  every  inch  a  man.  He  would  deliberately  close 
his  own  book  and  lay  it  one  side,  seldom  referring  to  it 
during  the  hour  of  recitation.  It  was  thus  easy  for  him 
to  persuade  us  to  follow  his  example  in  this  particular.  Our 
memories  were  trained  to  do  admirable  service,  so  that  at  the 
end  of  the  year  the  majority,  if  not  all,  of  the  class  could  repeat 
the  entire  seven  books,  except  the  demonstration  and  mathe- 
matical calculations,  from  beginning  to  end,  or  give  any  axiom, 
any  definition  or  proposition  by  its  appropriate  book  and 
number. 

"  In  the  demonstrations  on  the  blackboard  a  very  different 
course  was  pursued.  The  figures  were  often  purposely 
changed  from  the  form  given  in  the  book.  Numerals  were 
usually  substituted  for  the  letters,  and  every  effort  was  made 
to  make  the  demonstration  as  much  as  possible  a  training  of 
the  reason  with  as  little  of  memorising  as  could  be.  We  were 
stimulated  to  study  up  other  demonstrations,  and  sometimes 
he  would  set  the  example  by  giving  us  the  result  of  his  own 
study  of  other  text-books.  In  this  way  we  were  trained  to  self- 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  31 

to  make  a  furious  onset  at  the  same  thing  after 
breakfast. 

"After    breakfast    we    talked    or    gossiped.     They, 

H and   D ,   called,    and    soon    after   that    we 

had   a  splendid  bath  in   the   Wailuku,   which  is   now 

reliant  habits  of  study,  which  I  have  found  the  greatest  service 
in  all  my  subsequent  mathematical  work. 

"It  was  remarkable  how  much  hard  work  he  got  out  of  his 
class.  But  in  this,  as  in  everything  else,  he  always  led  others 
by  his  example.  I  have  been  under  the  instruction  of  various 
teachers  in  the  higher  mathematics;  some  of  them  were  finer 
scholars  than  Armstrong,  but  I  have  yet  to  know  the  man  who 
could  inspire  an  entire  class  with  his  own  spirit  and  purpose  as 
he  did.  There  was  something  in  his  personality  far  more 
influential  than  mere  learning  or  scholarship,  and  I  can  never 
cease  to  look  back  to  the  work  done  under  him  as  among  the 
most  valuable  to  me  of  my  whole  life. 

"With  the  end  of  the  school  year  came  the  public  examination. 
The  books  were,  as  usual,  laid  aside,  and  with  a  method  and 
precision  almost  military  the  class  was  put  through  its  drill. 
Every  one  was  delighted  with  the  bearing  of  the  teacher  and 
the  readiness  of  the  class.  At  length,  by  way  of  variety, 
Edward  Wilcox  was  told  to  demonstrate  a  certain  theorem  in 
Book  First.  After  drawing  the  figures,  he  was  requested  to 
change  the  order  of  the  numerals  to  be  used  in  the  demonstra- 
tion. Then,  after  a  few  moments  given  him  to  fix  the  figures  thus 
renumbered  in  his  memory,  he  was  ordered  to  turn  his  back 
on  the  board  and  proceed  with  the  demonstration  from  the 
figures  thus  pictured  in  his  mind.  This  was  done  in  such  a 
ready  and  prompt  manner  as  to  excite  the  surprise  of  one  of 
the  examining  committee,  who,  not  appreciating  the  true  object 
of  this  unusual  display  of  intellectual  gymnastics,  interrupted 
him  with  the  repeated  request,  'Look  at  your  figures,  young 
man.'  Armstrong  then  explained  to  the  rather  puzzled 
examiner  the  nature  of  the  test  to  which  he  was  putting  his 
pupil,  who  was  now  permitted  to  finish  his  task,  to  the  great 
interest  of  all  present.  The  superior  work  done  by  the  teacher 
and  his  class  was  highly  appreciated  by  the  committee,  and  will 
never  be  forgotten  by  those  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  belong 
to  the  class." — Joseph  S.  Emerson,  in  The  Outlook,  Oct.  21,  1893. 


32  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

high.     Only  D and  I  ventured  to  cross  the  main 

current.     H 's  wife  didn't  want  him  to  try  it. 

"June  nth.  We  finished  up  our  Virgil  yesterday 
and  have  now  on  hand  the  Anabasis  and  Cicero.  We 
commenced  the  Manilian  Law  yesterday — it's  rather 
tough.  After  lunch  I  saddled  my  little  mare  and 
went  to  Hamakua-poko  to  find  my  horse  Draco.  I 
scoured  the  country  and  saw  about  every  horse  in 
Hamakua,  but  after  riding  some  twelve  or  thirteen 
miles  came  back  without  him,  but  found  the  cow  down 
near  Maliko  with  no  rope  on ;  the  scamps  had  stolen  it. 
Reaching  home,  I  found  that  the  horse  had  been  on 
hand  all  the  time  and  was  with  the  others." 

He  remained  at  the  Punahou  School  till  the  year 
1860,  first  as  a  small  boy  rebellious  against  hoeing 
his  patch  of  corn,  then  as  a  youth  with  increasing 
social  interests  and  increasing  ambitions,  and  finally 
as  a  collegian;  for  in  1855  the  school  was  renamed 
Oahu  College,  and  became  an  institution  for  higher 
learning.  Here  as  one  of  a  class  of  four  he  took 
the  first  two  years  of  a  college  course,  which  pre- 
pared him  to  later  enter  the  Junior  class  at  Williams 
College  in  1860. 

The  following  extracts  from  the  vacation  journal 
show  that  he  was  not  permitted  to  fall  into  a  way 
of  life  where  his  head  did  all  the  work: 

"Saturday,  January  9,  1857.  After  breakfast,  father 
decided  to  build  a  house  for  Akio  (the  Chinese  man- 
servant), and  I  went  to  work  to  collect  materials.  Got 
3x4  scantling  from  Castle's  for  plates ;  procured  the 
rest,  tie-beams,  rafters,  floor-joists,  clapboards,  shingles, 


Hawaiian  Life*    J839-J860  33 

etc.,  at  Lewer's.  Scantling  now  cost  3 £  cents  per  foot, 
shingles  $8  per  thousand,  clapboards  (spruce),  6  feet, 
$9  per  hundred,  which  is  very  reasonable.  After  draw- 
ing the  lumber  with  Boki  (the  horse)  and  Akio,  I  took 

to  H a  copy  of  the  '  Anonymous '  which  I  had 

borrowed.  We  had  singing-school  in  the  evening. 

"Monday,  January  n.  This  morning  I  got  up 
early  and  tinkered  away  at  a  new  gate  for  the  upper 
lot.  I  finished  it  by  ten  o'clock. 

"Tuesday,  January  i2th.  This  morning  I  rose 
early  and  bathed.  After  breakfast  I  overhauled  the 
wire  fence  lot,  straightened  the  wires  and  braced  the 
posts.  This  dirty  job  took  me  till  2:30  P.M.,  when  I 
went  home  and  devoured  something,  and  then  collected 
my  thoughts  as  I  could  and  considered  my  address." 

The  question  of  pocket  money  still  occupied  the 
missionary  children,  and  many  were  the  ways  they 
adopted  of  earning  it. 

"One  of  the  ways  of  earning  pocket  money  as  we  got 
older  was  to  get  an  appointment  as  assessor  of  taxes 
in  some  country  district  during  the  summer  vacation. 
Six  weeks  of  hard  work  would  bring  in  fifty  dollars.  It 
was  not  play,  especially  when  it  came  to  counting  the 
dogs,  which,  being  a  luxury  and  a  nuisance,  were  taxed 
at  a  dollar  a  head.  The  burning  question  of  Hawaiian 
politics  was  the  dog  tax;  any  man  who  would  pledge 
himself  to  diminish  it  was  sure  of  his  election  to  the 
Hawaiian  legislature.  Torrents  of  eloquence  were 
poured  out  on  this  subject,  and  one  country  member, 
Ukeke,  nearly  gained  immortality  by  a  bill  to  abolish 
the  tax  on  good  dogs  and  tax  only  bad  ones,  but  the 
revenue  tax  was  necessary  to  support  royalty  and  the 
state,  and  there  was  no  escape.  It  goes  without  saying 


34  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

that  every  subterfuge  was  resorted  to  by  the  owners, 
and  I  remember  that  my  favorite  method  of  detection 
was,  with  my  escort,  to  gallop  furiously  up  to  the  house 
and  halt  suddenly,  making  such  a  racket  that  the  curs 
would  bark  and  betray  themselves  in  their  hiding- 
places,  inside  calabashes,  under  the  dresses  of  their 
squatting  mistresses,  and  tied  to  distant  trees.  Then 
began  pleading:  'Don't  count  that  dog;  we  are  going 
to  eat  him  to-morrow  ! '  '  That  one  is  too  little,'  etc.  It 
was  tiresome  work,  but  often  very  funny.  Many  of  my 
contemporaries  at  the  islands  assisted  in  some  such  way 
in  paying  the  expenses  of  their  education,  and  it  did  none 
of  us  any  harm.  [Some]  worked  as  surveyors,  striking 
their  lines  through  tropical  jungles;  others  took  posi- 
tions as  governors  of  guano  islands  1,500  miles  away 
in  the  remote  Pacific  seas,  and  with  groups  of  natives 
under  them  loaded  the  clipper  ships  that  ran  down 
from  San  Francisco  for  freight." 

To  supplement  his  summer  earnings  he  undertook 
in  his  twenty-first  year  the  work  of  chief  clerk  to 
his  father  during  the  absence  of  the  latter  in  the 
United  States,  in  the  year  1859-60. 

"I  was  then,"  he  says,  "a  sophomore  at  Oahu  College, 
but  the  liberal  salary  and  the  prospect  of  independence 
tempted  me,  and  for  some  months  I  worked  hard, 
editing,  book-keeping,  superintending  schools,  etc., 
keeping  up  my  studies  by  night  and  morning  work  and 
my  strength  by  long  gallops  to  and  from  the  beautiful 
Manoa  Valley." 

It  was  perhaps  for  financial  reasons  also  that  he 
undertook  the  editing  of  the  Hae  Hawaii,  a 
newspaper,  written  in  the  Hawaiian  tongue,  which 


Hawaiian  Life.     J839-J860  35 

was  read  freely  by  the  natives.  "Often  a  group 
of  natives  could  be  seen,"  writes  his  brother,  "in 
the  heart  of  the  wood,  listening  while  one  read 
aloud  Sam's  words  of  editorial  wisdom."  By 
means  of  this  editorial  work  the  young  man  gained 
some  influence  among  the  Hawaiians,  and  added 
to  his  store  of  experiences  an  acquaintance  with 
wily  white  politicians. 

"Sam  is  acquiring  quite  a  reputation  as  an  editor," 
wrote  his  father  to  the  eldest  daughter,  away  in  Cali- 
fornia, "and  even  numbers  His  Majesty  among  his 
editorial  corps.  There  have  come  in  about  600  new 
subscribers  since  Sam  took  charge  of  the  paper.  The 
Queen  spoke  yesterday  of  the  Hae  as  a  very  interesting 
paper;  but  having  his  college  studies  to  attend  to,  Sam 
is  rather  overworked." 

The  years  1859  and  1860  passed  in  this  busy 
fashion  without  radical  change  till  September, 
1860,  when  an  event  occurred  which  suddenly 
formulated  his  plans  and  stirred  him  into  manhood. 

"On  a  quiet  Sunday  morning  .  .  .  , "  he  writes, 
' '  I  rode  home  from  service  to  find  a  gathering  of  natives 
at  the  gate  and  my  sister  weeping  at  the  door.  Before 
she  spoke  I  knew  that  father  was  dead." 

A  fortnight  before,  Richard  Armstrong  had  been 
thrown  from  his  horse  and  seriously  injured,  but 
heretofore  his  recovery  had  seemed  probable. 

It  had  been  the  father's  dearest  wish  that  his  son 


36  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

should  go  to  Williams  College  in  order  that  he  might 
te  under  the  influence  of  Doctor  Mark  Hopkins, 
its  president,  then  regarded  as  the  leading  teacher 
of  philosophy  and  morals  in  America.  Samuel 
determined,  therefore,  to  leave  the  islands  at  once,  in 
order  to  enter,  if  possible,  the  Junior  class  of  Williams 
College  in  time  for  the  winter  term ;  and  toward  the 
end  of  September  he  set  sail  for  the  United  States, 
leaving  his  sorrowing  family  behind  him — four 
sisters,  mother  and  brother,  in  the  old  Stone  House. 

The  voyage  to  America  was  accomplished  with- 
out accident,  though  the  ship  encountered  a  terrible 
gale  which  blew  it  with  perilous  speed  toward  the 
coast.  The  gale  was  succeeded  by  a  calm  which 
detained  the  voyagers  several  days  within  sight 
of  land.  During  this  time,  as  Armstrong  dis- 
creetly observes,  "  everybody  but  I  did  nothing  but 
swear  and  smoke;  I  sighed  for  poi  and  my  native 
land." 

In  later  years,  looking  back  over  his  youth,  his 
mind  passed  over  the  pleasant  social  aspect  of  it — 
the  jolly  rides  with  his  companions  and  the  merry- 
makings— and  turned  to  the  inspiring  beauty  of 
Hawaiian  scenery.  He  wrote  in  1886  from  a  sick- 
bed to  a  group  of  young  people  then  in  Hawaii : 

"The  beauty  and  grandeur  of  Hawaiian  scenery  is  a 
noble  teacher.  ...  It  will  make  you  better  men 
and  women  if  you  will  let  it.  Get  all  of  it  you  can. 
Your  special  gaieties,  parties  and  things  are  of  no 
account  whatever  compared  with  the  ministry  of 


Hawaiian  Life.    J839-J860  37 

mountain  and  sea.  Listen  to  them.  Approach  and 
live  with  them  all  you  can.  Hear  and  heed  these  great 
silent  teachers  about  you." 

And  again: 

"You  have  the  volcano  to  make  you  devout." 

But  now,  naturally  enough,  it  was  of  his  friends, 
of  the  home  behind  him,  and  of  his  plans  for  the 
future  that  he  thought.  From  this  voyage  dates 
the  beginning  of  a  series  of  letters  to  his  mother 
and  sisters  which  describe  minutely  his  voyage, 
his  college  life,  and  his  experiences  in  the  army, 
written  at  first  in  the  flowery  style  then  fashionable, 
later  with  increasing  brevity  and  force.  In  the 
first  letters  one  can  see  the  young  man,  half  home- 
sick, half  glad  to  escape  from  the  tears  and  mourn- 
ing of  Stone  House,  hardly  conscious  of  his  inexpe- 
rience and  certainly  unabashed  by  it,  intending 
heartily  to  return.  To  what  he  was  going  he  knew 
not.  His  parents  had  both  desired  that  he  should 
be  a  minister,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  other  plan 
he  held  their  wishes  first ;  but  there  was  in  his  heart 
a  rollicking  delight  in  life  that  did  not  draw  him 
toward  a  theological  seminary. 

Caroline,  the  eldest  sister  of  the  Armstrong  chil- 
dren, had  married  some  time  before  this  and  was 
living  at  Sacramento,  California.  Toward  her  home 
he  made  his  way.  He  describes  his  arrival  in 
Sacramento  as  follows: 

"As  I  walked  up  to  the  Railroad  House  in  that  new 


3  8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

city  (new  to  me),  I  could  almost  have  sung  'Home 
Again.'  There  I  was  taken  charge  of  by  a  little  squirm- 
ing fellow  that  always  went  on  a  smart  dog-trot,  and 
held  a  dozen  lamps  in  one  hand,  two  carpet-bags  and 
several  keys  in  the  other,  and  opened  doors  without 
laying  anything  down;  that  chap  stowed  me  away  in 
a  little  cell,  where  I  felt  like  a  dog  shut  up  for  chasing 
hens.  In  the  morning  I  found  my  Sacramento  home." 

After  a  merry  week  with  his  sister  he  took  ship  for 
Panama  and  crossed  the  isthmus,  where  another 
vessel  bound  for  New  York  awaited  him.  He 
wrote  his  mother,  describing  the  short  journey  by 
rail  as  follows: 

"At  4  P.M.  we  started  over  in  the  cars.  The  scenery 
was  quite  Hawaiian-like,  and  the  luxuriant  foliage  was 
good  for  the  eyes.  Soon  we  stopped  for  another  train, 
about  an  hour,  and  I  managed  to  procure  a  lot  of  excel- 
lent sugar-cane,  which  was  a  delightful  luxury  to  the 
girls  and  myself.  It  was  now  night,  and  the  train 
thundered  along,  rousing  the  dogs  in  the  little  dirty 
hamlets  we  passed  through,  and  the  dark,  oily-skinned 
savages  would  come  with  lights  to  their  doors  to  see 
us  and  give  us  a  salutatory  yell  as  we  passed  along, 
while  naked  little  imps  would  throw  sticks  at  the  cars. 
The  thickets  were  enshrouded  in  darkness,  and  we 
could  see  the  quiet  Chagres  River  close  by  us  through 
the  openings  in  the  chaparral.  Anon  we  would  dive 
into  a  gloomy  gorge,  and  the  scene  on  the  whole  was 
romantic,  especially  as  the  fire-flies  were  flashing  from 
every  dark  bush  and  gleaming  in  every  shade.  I  often 
think  how  little  those  at  home  fancied  where  I  was 
during  those  moments.  I  like  the  strangeness  and 
wildness  of  things. 


Hawaiian  Life.    J839-J860  39 

"At  about  eight  o'clock  we  stepped  into  a  restaurant 
at  Aspinwall  to  wait  for  the  steamer  to  get  up  steam, 
and  I  strolled  about,  beset  with  entreaties  to  buy  and 
eat  or  to  purchase  shell  baskets;  but  I  was  inexorable. 
Soon  we  were  on  the  Ariel  and  away  on  a  smooth  sea." 

In  two  weeks  he  arrived  at  New  York,  a  month 
after  his  departure  from  Hawaii.  An  elder  brother, 
William  N.  Armstrong,  had  been  settled  in  New 
York  as  a  lawyer  for  several  years,  and  to  him  the 
newcomer  went  at  once.  The  two  lived  together 
for  some  days,  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  elder 
the  younger  saw  the  sights  of  the  town. 

"It's  Friday  evening,  November  3oth,  and  I'm  now 
in  Will's  room  in  28  Union  Square,  away  uptown  and 
away  up  in  the  fourth  story  [sic  !],  and  it's  eleven  o'clock. 
You  may  want  to  ask,  as  many  do,  'How  does  New 
York  seem?'  It  seems  sure  enough  a  great  city.  I 
am  not  disappointed  either  way.  It  gratified  my 
curiosity  to  see  the  marble  palaces  and  majestic  buildings, 
but  excites  no  feeling,  no  emotion.  Nothing  looks  as 
if  it  had  been  very  hard  to  construct.  I  only  think  how 
much  these  houses  cost.  Things  are  generally  exag- 
gerated; the  crowds  on  the  sidewalks  are  not  so  great, 
after  all — one  can  cross  the  street  a  hundred  times  an 
hour  without  danger,  even  in  Broadway.  I  make 
nothing  of  doing  it;  it  only  requires  self-possession  and 
quickness. 

"  In  these  crowds  a  fellow  feels  as  he  does  in  a  wilder- 
ness, except  that  in  the  latter  there  is  a  certain  solemnity 
and  sacredness.  In  both  one  feels  that  no  one  is 
noticing  him  and  he  can  do  just  as  he  likes.  I'll  tell 
you  what  did  astonish  me — it  was  Beecher's  Thanks- 


40  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

giving  sermon — a  splendid  effort.  His  eloquence  was 
matchless,  his  control  over  the  audience  wonderful. 
Beecher  is  equal  to  his  fame. 

"I  also  listened  for  half  an  hour  or  so  to  the  opera 
of  'The  Jewess'  at  the  Academy  of  Music,  and  it  was 
my  first  sight.  I  was  and  am  a  convert  to  the  opera; 
such  sylph-like  grace  in  acting,  such  queenly  beauty, 
rich,  melodious  voices,  gorgeous  robes,  magnificent 
scenery;  such  a  majestic  bass  as  that  of  Carl  Formes, 
and  the  delicious  trilling  and  swells  of  Madame  Anna 
Bishop  were  enough  to  inspire  me  with  a  flow  of  delightful 
sensations  such  as  I  never  before  have  known.  The 
music  gave  dignity  and  power  to  the  language  they 
uttered,  and  the  story  involved  lent  a  charm  to  the 
music.  The  opera  was  grand !  Quite  different  from 
the  chorus  of  ten  thousand  wild  he-goats  that  usher  in 
the  morning  and  raise  their  clarion-like  matins  on  the 
crags  of  Waimanalo.  Could  you  have  stood  by  out 
side  that  evening  as  the  full  chorus  burst  out,  or  heard 
the  voices  of  the  Jewish  maidens,  you'd  have  felt 
healthier  for  a  week. 

"Well,  it's  past  twelve;  to-morrow  I  go  to  Barrington 
and  Williamstown ;  the  rest  of  our  party  are  all  at 
Barrington  now." 


SAMUEL   CHAPMAN    ARMSTRONG   AT   THE   AGE    OF    20 


CHAPTER  II 
WILLIAMS  COLLEGE.     1860-1862 

"It  was,  I  think,  in  the  winter  of  1860,  when  I  was 
rooming  in  East  College  at  Williams,  that  into  my 
introspective  life  Nature  flung  a  sort  of  cataclysm  of 
health  named  Sam  Armstrong,"  wrote  a  friend  and 
classmate  many  years  after,  "like  other  cyclones  from 
the  South  Seas ;  a  Sandwich  Islander,  son  of  a  missionary. 
Until  Miss  Murfree  wrote  her  'Prophet  of  the  Great 
Smoky  Mountains, '  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
describe  Armstrong's  immediate  personal  effect.  There 
was  a  quality  in  it  that  defied  the  ordinary  English  vo- 
cabulary. To  use  the  eastern  Tennessee  dialect,  which 
alone  could  do  him  justice,  he  was  'plumb  survigrous.' 
To  begin  with,  as  Mark  Twain  might  express  it,  he 
had  been  fortunate  in  the  selection  of  his  parents. 
The  roots  of  his  nature  struck  deep  into  the  soil  of 
two  strong  races.  .  .  .  Then,  too,  he  was  an  islander; 
his  constitution  smacked  of  the  seas.  There  was  about 
him  something  of  the  high  courage  and  jollity  of  the 
tar;  he  carried  with  him  the  vitalities  of  the  ocean. 
Like  all  those  South  Sea  Islanders,  he  had  been  brought 
up  to  the  water ;  it  had  imparted  to  him  a  kind  of  mental 
as  well  as  physical  amphibiousness.  It  seemed  natural 
for  him  to  strike  out  in  any  element.  But  what  im- 
pressed one  most  was  his  schooling.  Not  but  that 
it  was  in  unison  with  the  man;  it  was,  in  fact,  remark- 
ably so;  but  it  was  so  entirely  out  of  the  common — 
so  free-handed  and  virile.  His  father  had  been  minister 


42  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

of  public  instruction  at  Hawaii.  The  son  accompanied 
him  on  his  official  tours  and  had  been  let  into  the 
business.  He  could  manage  a  boat  in  a  storm,  teach 
school,  edit  a  newspaper,  assist  in  carrying  on  a  govern- 
ment, take  up  a  mechanical  industry  at  will,  under- 
stand the  natives,  sympathize  with  missionaries,  talk 
with  profound  theorists,  recite  well  in  Greek  or  mathe- 
matics, conduct  an  advanced  class  in  geometry,  and 
make  no  end  of  fun  for  little  children.  In  short,  he 
was  a  striking  illustration  of  the  Robinson  Crusoe-like 
multiformity  of  function  that  grows  up  perforce  under 
the  necessities  of  a  missionary  station.  New  England 
energy,  oceanic  breeziness,  missionary  environment, 
disclosed  themselves  in  him.  Such  was  Armstrong 
as  he  came  into  my  life,  bringing  his  ozone  with  him. 

"Armstrong  gravitated  to  Williams  College  by 
social  law;  it  was  the  resort  for  missionaries'  sons; 
there  was  the  haystack  at  which  the  missionary  enter- 
prise was  started;  it  was  a  kind  of  sacred  idol,  a  rendez- 
vous for  spiritual  knights-errant,  and  Armstrong, 
though  not  very  spiritual,  was  a  knight-errant  to  the 
core.  Like  other  missionaries'  sons,  he  poked  fun  at 
the  natives  and  entertained  small  circles  with  the 
ridiculous  phases  of  missionary  life;  yet  he  was  a  kind 
of  missionary  in  disguise,  always  ready  to  go  out  of 
his  way  for  the  purpose  of  slyly  helping  somebody  up 
to  a  better  moral  or  physical  plane.  His  'plumb 
survigrousness '  gave  him  an  eternal  effervescence;  in 
fact,  his  body  was  a  kind  of  catapult  for  his  mind;  it 
was  forever  projecting  his  mental  force  in  some  direction 
so  that  he  was  continually  carrying  on  intellectual 
'high  jinks' — going  off  into  extravaganzas,  throwing 
every  subject  into  grotesque  light;  as  a  result,  he  was 
never  serious,  though  always  earnest.  He  took  to 
Williams  College  as  to  a  natural  habitat;  he  lifted  up 


Williams  College.    J860-J862  43 

his  'plumb  survigrous'  voice  and  made  intellectual 
pandemonium  at  the  dinner  table. 

"He  was  a  trifle  above  middle  height,  broad- 
shouldered,  with  large,  well-poised  head,  forehead  high 
and  wide,  deep-set  flashing  eyes,  a  long  mane  of  light- 
brown  hair,  his  face  very  brown  and  sailor-like.  He 
bore  his  head  high  and  carried  about  an  air  of  insolent 
good  health.  He  was  unconventional  in  his  notions, 
Shaksperean  in  sympathy,  and  wished  to  see  all  sides  of 
life,  yet  he  never  formed  affiliations  with  the  bad  side. 
If  he  touched  pitch,  he  got  rid  of  it  as  soon  as  he  could 
— pleasantly  if  possible,  but  at  all  events  decidedly;  he 
had  a  robust  habit  of  will,  and  laid  hold  always  of  the 
best  in  his  environment. 

"Intellectually  he  was  a  leader.  Spiritually  he  was 
religious,  with  a  deep  reverence  for  his  father's  life 
and  work.  .  .  .  Yet  all  felt  him  to  be  under  great 
terrestrial  headway.  Sometimes  he  seemed  to  have 
little  respect  for  the  spiritual ;  he  shocked  people  by  his 
levity  and  irreverance.  Yet  there  was  about  him  at  all 
times  a  profound  reverence  of  spirit  for  God,  manhood, 
womanhood,  and  all  sacred  realities.  Indeed,  with  him 
reverence  and  religion  alike  were  matters  not  of  form, 
but  of  inward  principle  whose  application  he  had  not 
yet  mastered.  Other  men  were  original  in  thought; 
he  was  original  in  character;  but  above  all  there  was  an 
immediacy  of  nature.  His  greatest  tendency  seemed 
to  be  to  go  ahead;  he  has,  in  fact,  often  reminded  me  of 
Harry  Wadsworth,  the  hero  of  E.  E.  Kale's  'Ten 
Times  One  is  Ten.'  He  was  the  most  strenuous  man 
I  ever  saw.  Naturally  he  was  a  problem  to  us — what 
would  he  come  to  ?  Doctor  Arnold  said  of  himself : 
'Aut  Caesar,  aut  nullus/  Armstrong  said  of  himself: 
'Missionary  or  pirate.'  "  * 

*Dr.  John  Denison  in  Atlantic  Monthly ,  February,  1894. 


44  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

The  college  world  in  which  Armstrong  found 
himself  during  the  eighteen  months  of  his  stay  in 
Williamstown  was  a  different  one  from  that  of 
to-day.  The  years  of  conflict  from  1861  to  1865 
brought  about  a  more  radical  divergence  of  student 
ideals  and  customs  than  the  twenty  between  1870 
and  1890,  for  the  war,  breaking  the  barriers 
between  East  and  West  and  North  and  South, 
introducing  the  resources  of  the  country  to  the 
men  who  were  able  to  handle  them,  enlarged  the 
scope  of  college  as  of  national  life.  This  ante- 
bellum college  world  was  a  very  little  one,  in  which 
a  kind  of  family  life  was  possible ;  in  it  men  met 
their  social  equals  and  few  besides;  the  distinctions 
between  rich  and  poor  were  not  emphasized  as 
now  by  luxurious  apartments  for  the  well-to-do 
and  the  plainest  of  dormitories  or  boarding-houses 
for  the  men  who  have  to  work  their  way.  Less 
cosmopolitan,  surely,  the  old  way,  but  more 
companionable. 

In  such  a  setting  individual  characters  stood 
clearly  denned  and  single  voices  could  be  heard. 
More  regard  was  given  to  the  teacher  than  to  the 
laboratory.  Garfield's  definition  of  a  good  college 
as  "a  log  with  Doctor  Hopkins  sitting  on  one  end 
and  a  student  on  the  other, "  was  the  standard  of 
academic  worth.  So  Armstrong  was  sent,  not  so 
much  to  Williams  College,  as  to  be  under  Doctor 
Hopkins,  for  Doctor  Hopkins  was  the  college. 

Armstrong  saw  nothing  of  him,  however,  during 


Williams  College.    J860-J862  45 

the  first  three  months  of  his  stay  at  Williamstown. 
His  impressions  at  first  were  mainly  of  cold  weather 
and  social  stiffness.  When  he  first  arrived  the 
long  winter  vacation  had  begun,  and  in  addition 
to  the  dreariness  of  ice  and  snow  everywhere,  the 
place  seemed  to  him  solemn  and  deserted.  He  chose 
a  temporary  lodging-place  and  settled  himself  to 
study  and  make  what  he  could  otherwise  out  of 
this  place,  more  suited,  he  thought,  to  a  New  England 
anchorite  than  to  a  hot-blooded  young  fellow  from 
the  tropics.  No  swimming,  no  riding,  no  sailing, 
no  flirting  even;  yet  a  man  cannot  study  all  the 
time !  No  wonder  the  scenery  moved  him  to 
ridicule  and  the  society  to  homesickness. 

In  a  home  letter  written  December  14,  1860, 
he  says : 

"Williamstown  is  shockingly  lonely.  It  is,  you 
know,  the  early  part  of  the  long  winter  vacation  now. 
I  suspect  that  they  keep  the  girls  tied  up  or  that  they 
stay  abed  all  the  while,  it's  so  cold;  I  have  seen  but 
a  few  girls  and  only  three  or  four  squads  of  urchins 
sliding  down  hill.  The  girls  sometimes  slide,  and  they 
look  really  pretty  as  they  kneel  on  the  sled,  catch  the 
boys'  shoulders  and  '  scoot '  away  like  fairies. 

"The  mountains  here  are  nothing  more  than  Nature's 
warts,  little  stuck-up  hills  that  you  could  cross  in  an 
hour  on  a  donkey  going  backward  faster  than  forward. 

"Well,  I'm  in  a  very  nice  room,  at  a  desk  with  a 
kerosene  lamp,  and  a  stove  fire  just  behind  me,  about 
ten  o'clock  P.M. 

"I  showed  my  old  lady  yours  and  Ellen's  drawings; 


46  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

she  thought  that  'people  can  get  educated  there  as 
well  as  here/  The  floor  is  carpeted  and  the  room  is 
papered. 

"The  snow  lies  a  foot  deep — weather  awfully  cold; 
two  below  zero  to-day.  I'll  tell  you  why  to-day  has 
been  a  very  peculiar  and  strange  one  to  me.  First,  I 
finished  my  Greek  studies.  I've  read  steadily  some 
seven  or  nine  hours  every  day  for  ten  days  (Sundays 
excepted)  in  Demosthenes — enough  to  have  used  me 
clean  up  at  the  islands,  but  I  don't  mind  it  at  all  here. 
I  feel  free,  as  the  hardest  is  over.  You  see,  the  term 
was  out  a  little  after  I  arrived  in  New  York,  and  I 
have  to  do  in  four  or  five  weeks  all  the  work  of  the 
last  term  and  considerable  of  the  previous  in  Sopho- 
more year.  The  work  is  over  and  I  breathe  freely. 

"Secondly,  I  had  a  letter  from  J [a  sister];  she  is 

doing  well;  letters,  you  know,  are  precious  to  the  exile. 

"Thirdly,  I  had  my  first  sleigh  ride!  I  hired  a 
sleigh  and  invited  a  student  to  go  with  me;  but  I  had 
to  rub  my  ears  to  keep  them  from  freezing — more 
work  than  fun. 

"Fourthly,  as  I  was  reading  the  peroration  of  Demos- 
thenes' Oration  on  the  Crown,  little  George  C 

brought  me  a  letter  in  Will's  handwriting.  I  opened 
it  and  was  surprised  to  see  the  delicate  handwriting 
inside.  I  wondered  again,  and  just  then  saw  'Stone 
House, '  and  soon  I  knew  it  was  from  you,  and  with 
an  intensity  of  interest  that  you  haven't  the  remotest 
idea  of  I  devoured  its  contents." 


At  last  the  loth  of  January  came  and  the  term 
began.  He  moved  from  his  room  in  the  lodging- 
house  to  the  college  dormitory,  whence  he  writes 
as  follows: 


Williams  College*    J860-J862  47 

"WILLIAMSTOWN,  January  10,  1861. 

"I  have  left  Mrs.  C 's  and  room  now  in  13  East 

College.  We  are  on  the  ground  floor,  and  here  is  a  plan 
of  the  room.  The  floor  is  carpeted  plainly  and  the 
walls  are  papered;  just  behind  the  sociable  hangs  the 
'Court  of  Death,'  and  other  pictures  hang  around  the 
room — one  a  most  exquisite  gem,  'Christ  of  the  Cross'; 
it  is  small  but  rare.  I'll  get  one  and  send  it  home  if  I 
can.  We  have  cozy  little  bedrooms,  about  two-thirds 
as  large  as  our  spare  room  at  home.  My  bedroom  is 
nicely  carpeted.  I  have  a  fine  iron  bedstead  and  good 
bedding.  The  large  room  was  furnished  when  I  came, 
so  that  I  only  had  to  fit  up  my  bedroom,  which  I  did 
at  a  cost  of  some  $15,  including  a  desk  and  a  chair. 
Bedding  is  very  expensive,  and  quantities  are  necessary 
in  this  weather.  At  six  A.  M.  a  bell  rings;  in  about 
thirty  minutes  a  fellow  comes  in  and  lights  our  fire 
(we  sleep  in  a  cold  room  all  night),  and  when  the  second 
bell,  at  seven,  rings  I  jump  up,  sponge  all  over  with 
biting  cold  water — this  makes  me  feel  fine — dress  and 
hurry  off  to  breakfast  at  Ilosford's,  about  half  a  mile 
distant,  where  I  get  board  at  $2  per  week. 

"At  nine  we  attend  prayers  in  the  chapel.  .  .  . 
After  that  Sam  Alexander  and  I  go  to  the  gymnasium 
and  have  a  'set-to'  with  the  boxing-gloves  for  exercise, 
and  then  I  go  to  my  room  and  study  mechanics,  which 
is  a  little  tough,  especially  Jackson's  Mechanics.  At 
eleven  we  attend  recitation  in  mechanics  to  Professor 
Albert  Hopkins  twenty  or  thirty  minutes;  then  return 
to  our  rooms  till  twelve  and  then  go  to  dinner;  return 
at  one  P.  M.,  always  stopping  at  the  post-office  on  the 
way,  as  we  do  also  when  we  go  to  breakfast,  and  are  too 
often  disappointed.  We  then  study  our  Latin,  Tacitus, 
and  recite  to  Professor  Smith.  After  that  we  have 
evening  prayers,  always  conducted  by  the  president, 


48  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

and  from  prayers  march  to  supper.  The  evening  is 
then  before  us,  for  study  or  otherwise.  On  Wednesday 
and  Saturday  p.  M.  there  are  no  recitations. 

"Our  class  numbers  some  fifty-two  fellows  and  is  a 
mixture  of  very  fine  and  very  poor  students.  Those 
with  the  best  memories  succeed  the  best  generally, 
though  not  always;  study  and  not  thought  seems  to  be 
the  aim  of  college  exercises.  I'm  now  beginning  to 
feel  a  little  at  home  in  Williamstown,  but  don't  entirely 
like  this  cold  weather.  For  a  few  days  it  was  bitterly 
cold  and  I  suffered  a  little,  but  it  has  now  moderated 
and  for  a  few  days  the  climate  has  been  most  exhilarat- 
ing. I  never  felt  better  in  my  life  than  I  do  now.  The 
snow  is  very  deep,  deeper  than  for  many  years  before, 
and  when  a  thaw  comes  there  will  be  awful  slush. 

"So  now  you  know  what  I  am  about.  I'd  write  you 
a  longer  letter  if  there  was  anything  to  write  about; 
and,  moreover,  I  haven't  the  time  to  write  that  I  had 
in  vacation." 

In  the  following  speaks  the  philosopher: 

"Don't  let  your  health  suffer.  Ellen  writes  me  that 
you  look  'careworn,'  and  I  know  you  must  be  lonely; 
but  there  are  'living  waters'  to  refresh  us  and  sweet 
voices  from  a  better  land.  ...  I  hope  the  girls 
get  a  chance  to  ride  horseback  occasionally.  I  should 
be  sorry  to  learn  that  you  don't  get  your  accustomed 
rides  or  that  Major  is  either  ill -behaved  or  lean.  There 
is  only  one  thing  that  will  keep  you  up  at  home  and 
that  is  cheerfulness;  you  must  secure  that  at  all  events; 
if  necessary,  fill  the  house  with  cats  from  top  to  bottom, 
tie  a  dog  to  every  lilac,  and  place  monkeys  in  every 
tree;  at  any  rate,  keep  cheerful.  There  is  no  use  in 
melancholy,  and  there  is  a  fascination  in  melancholy 


Williams  College.    J860-J862  49 

which  is  dangerous — it  is  like  the  serpent's  insidious 
charm ;  it  wears  the  life  away. 

"I  found  it  quite  hard  to  study  at  first;  the  past 
would  flash  vividly  over  me  and  I  could  not  apply  my 
mind.  I'm  doing  well  now,  however.  I  found  a  pleasure 
in  reviewing  those  sad  days  of  gloom,  and  found,  too, 
that  much  of  my  retrospection  did  me  no  good — it  was 
like  a  stimulant." 

During  the  winter  he  had  formed  a  pleasant 
acquaintance  with  a  son  *  of  the  President  and  in 
March  was  invited  to  share  his  room  in  Doctor 
Hopkins' s  house.  He  gladly  accepted  this  invi- 
tation, having  conceived  a  strong  admiration  for  his 
president. 

"Doctor  Hopkins,"  he  said,  "is  a  noble  man  in  the 
highest  sense  of  the  word;  I  never  saw  his  equal;  he  is 
essentially  a  man  of  power,  and  combines  the  highest 
traits  of  character." 

So  began  a  lifelong  friendship  with  both  the 
father  and  son. 

His  new  situation  in  a  home-life  relieved  the 
sense  of  loneliness  which  Armstrong  had  felt  ever 
since  coming  to  college  and  greatly  broadened  his 
social  horizon;  it  was  of  no  slight  importance  to 
him  to  see  something  of  the  ways  of  the  cultivated 
New  England  people  he  met  in  the  families  of  the 
President  and  the  college  professors.  He  began 
to  broaden  his  student  acquaintance,  and  made  the 

*Archibald  Hopkins. 


So  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

discovery  that  good  clothes  and  presentable  man- 
ners are  valuable  assets. 

"When  a  man's  history  is  not  known,  dress  has  a  great 
deal  to  do  with  his  position ;  when  he  is  once  thoroughly 
known,  dress  is  a  small  matter.  With  two-thirds  of 
the  fellows  in  college  style  in  dress  is  nothing,  and  as 
for  them  I  could  dress  anyhow,  but  the  other  third  care 
much  about  fashion  and  are  yet  smart,  fine  and  polished 
fellows — their  society  gives  a  man  polish.  While  in 
college  I  wish  to  be  dressed  as  well  as  the  best.  I  find 
it  pleasanter  to  be  received  as  an  equal  than  to  be 
looked  upon  as  out  of  my  place  when  I  meet  with  the 
well-dressed  of  New  York  or  even  of  Williamstown." 

He  joined  no  college  society,  saying: 

"In  college  I  belong  to  no  secret  society  and  must 
rely  on  my  own  merit  for  getting  friends;  when  one 
joins  a  secret  society  all  in  it  are  his  sworn  friends, 
right  or  wrong;  this  is  childish." 

He  keenly  enjoyed  this  new-found  social  life, 
but  it  never  made  him  forget  the  bereaved  mother 
and  sisters  at  home.  He  calls  his  pleasures  to 
account  for  themselves  in  the  form  of  some  perma- 
nent good: 

"It  is  hardly  right  for  me  to  be  so  singularly  blest 
and  so  gay  while  you  are  still  bleeding  from  the  direst 
wound  that  you  ever  felt.  This  means  something — 
God  has  not  done  all  this  to  me  for  nothing.  I  wonder 
what  He  would  teach  bv  this." 


Williams  College.    J860-J862  51 

Meditating  seriously  upon  the  future,  he  writes 
at  about  the  same  time: 

"WILLIAMSTOWN,  March  30,  1861. 
"Just  now  there  is  considerable  religious  interest 
in  college,  and  I  think  I  have  become  a  better  Christian 
than  I  used  to  be.  I  look  forward  with  joy  to  a  life 
of  doing  good,  and  if  my  native  land  should  present  the 
strongest  claims  to  me  I  should  be  willing  and  glad  to 
go  there.  My  aim  is  to  study  for  the  ministry,  but  yet 
I  hesitate  to  take  the  solemn  vows — the  responsibility 
is  so  awful.  Besides,  I  may  not  have  the  means  to  study 
that  profession  or  any  other.  If  the  plantation  pays 
well  I  may  be  aided  by  that — in  about  a  year  from 
now  this  question  will  become  a  serious  one.  I  believe 
the  means  will  come  from  somewhere,  and  if  they  don't 
I'll  begin  to  suspect  that  Providence  doesn't  design 
me  for  clerical  duties.  Baxter  [his  brother]  used  to  say 
that  none  of  our  family  would  make  good  ministers; 
if  he  feels  that  about  my  choice,  tell  him  that  I  mean 
to  have  good  times  after  all  and  not  to  look  like  a 
galvanized  mummy.  Tell  him  to  save  me  one  of  his 
finest  colts — I  may  need  it  in  about  four  years." 

War  excitement  touched  him  in  the  spring  vaca- 
tion of  1 86 1.  April  2oth  he  wrote  from  New  York: 

"It  is  no  easy  thing  to  compose  oneself  at  this 
time.  War  is  the  only  thing  talked  about,  and  almost 
the  only  thing  done  is  getting  up  regiments  and  making 
uniforms,  etc.,  for  the  soldiers.  Thousands  wear 
badges  of  one  kind  and  another  on  their  breast,  indi- 
cating the  allegiance  to  the  flag.  The  infants  in  the 
nurses'  arms  hold  in  their  tiny  hands  the  Stars  and 


$2  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Stripes,  and  small  boys  stick  little  flags  all  over  them- 
selves; the  drays  and  carts  of  all  descriptions  display 
the  Union  flag,  and  in  every  imaginable  place  the  star- 
spangled  banner  is  'flung  to  the  breeze.'  The  appear- 
ance of  Broadway  and  Cortlandt  Street  is  magnificent 
from  the  profusion  of  bunting  hung  out  of  the  windows. 
"The  excitement  is  extraordinary;  since  the  Seventh 
Regiment  left,  the  New  Yorkers  have  taken  and  will 
take  the  deepest  interest  in  the  war.  The  departure 
of  the  Seventh  was  a  magnificent  triumph;  never  did 
the  Caesars  have  such  an  ovation;  handkerchiefs  moist- 
ened with  tears  were  waved  at  them — one  great  surge 
of  applause  rolled  down  Broadway  and  continued  for 
hours.  The  regiment  looked  splendidly.  Scarcely  a 
lady  of  the  higher  circles  of  this  city  but  has  a  friend 
there — some  of  them  have  many;  there  are  lovers 
and  brothers  and  bridegrooms  in  the  regiment.  It  is 
awful  to  think  of  the  amount  of  happiness  that  is  staked 
upon  the  petted  Seventh.  Hundreds  of  the  noblest 
hearts  will  bleed  or  brighten  as  those  fellows  fall  or 
survive.  No  one  doubts  their  courage." 

He  was  present  at  the  great  patriotic  meeting  in 
Union  Square,  New  York,  where  a  quarter  of  a 
million  of  persons  were  gathered,  and  where  Major 
Anderson's  speech  roused  the  people  to  white  heat. 

"I  shall  go  to  the  war  if  I  am  needed,  but  not  till 
then;  were  I  an  American,  as  I  am  a  Hawaiian,  I  should 
be  off  in  a  hurry.  Next  term  it  will  be  hard  to  remain 
at  Williamstown,  and  harder  yet  to  study." 

But  ere  long  lack  of  money  took  him  back  to 
Williamstown.  He  continues: 


Williams  College*    J860-J862  53 

"  I  might  say  here  that  I  really  got  tired  of  New  York 
City  after  being  there  nine  days — one  fact,  however, 
is  that  I  couldn't  afford  to  visit  the  opera  and  theater; 
and  I  don't  get  any  horseback  rides — that  is  too  bad, 
'  but  I  must  grin  and  bear  it' !  I  hope  to  get  a  swim  in 
a  month  or  two.  In  this  miserable  hole  one  can  go  into 
the  stream  only  three  months  in  the  year !  Not  before 
the  4th  of  July." 

The  chary  Berkshire  spring  passed  and  full  sum- 
mer came. 

"But  it  is  almost  June  and  we  are  wearing  our  winter 
clothing  and  sit  by  fires.  Many  fellows,  having  burned 
up  all  their  wood,  are  determined  not  to  buy  any  more 
and  so  have  to  shiver  through.  Our  stove  has  been 
taken  down,  and  I  have  to  wrap  up  to  keep  warm  enough 
to  study  comfortably.  It  is  the  very  meanest  kind  of 
weather — the  worst  spring  that  anybody  ever  knew 
here,  and  the  farmers  are  almost  discouraged. 

"We  see  the  sun  now  and  then  from  week  to  week 
and  everybody  runs  to  see  it  when  they  get  a  chance. 
I  can't  stand  many  of  these  New  England  winters,  and 
just  now  long  for  the  trade  winds,  clear  skies,  mountains, 
the  ocean,  and  a  ride  on  horseback.  A  ride  here  costs 
fifty  cents,  but  the  nags  are  a  sorry-looking  set  and  can 
only  trot,  and  the  ladies  as  well  as  gentlemen  do  nothing 
but  trot,  with  a  few  exceptions. 

"I  have  begun  to  dig  in  the  garden  this  term,  and 
when  it  doesn't  rain  I  get  up  before  breakfast  and  spade 
up  flower  beds,  etc.  I  have  one  large  flower  bed  all  to 
myself — but  the  rainstorms  interfere  sadly  with  this 
plan.  I  am  having  an  easy  time  now.  I  study  my 
lessons  only  about  two  and  a  half  hours  a  day,  and  on 
Wednesday  have  only  one  recitation  and  on  Saturday 


54  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

none.  But  I  study  practical  astronomy  besides — that  is, 
I  go  down  to  the  observatory  when  it  is  clear  and  look 
at  the  stars.  It  takes  up  my  evenings  to  a  great  extent, 
but  I  don't  recite  to  any  one.  After  this,  till  I  gradu- 
ate, I  shall  only  have  two  recitations  a  day,  except  on 
Wednesdays  and  Saturdays,  when  there  is  only  one." 

An  occasional  word  gives  a  glimpse  of  the  opinions 
then  prevalent  concerning  the  course  of  the  war. 

"There  is  one  feeling  that  you  need  not  now  be 
troubled  with — that  is,  longing  to  come  to  the  States. 
The  Southerners  are  desperate  now,  and  are  bound  to 
ruin  northern  commerce.  Within  three  or  four  months 
from  to-day,  I  suppose,  the  southern  privateers  will 
be  hovering  about  the  California  coast  and  the  packets 
to  and  from  the  islands  will  be  in  danger;  and  the 
steamers  on  their  way  to  Panama  and  up  this  side 
will  be  liable  to  capture  or  a  hard  fight.  Still,  they 
are  pretty  formidable  and  can't  be  easily  caught.  The 
war  will  afford  but  little  chance  for  a  young  lady  here 
to  get  married,  and  those  that  stay  here  will  most 
likely  become  spinsters. 

"I  haven't  told  you,  I  guess,  that  the  students  are 
all  drilling  in  military  maneuvers.  Each  class  is 
formed  into  a  company  and  drills  once  or  twice  a  day — 
it's  good  fun.  We  sent  to  Governor  Andrew  for 
muskets,  but  he  won't  let  us  have  any  at  present. 
There  is  nothing  going  on  just  now.  Politics  and  war 
matters  are  progressing  steadily,  but  let  me  assure  you 
that  you  probably  entirely  misunderstand  the  state 
of  things.  The  excitement  is  not  nearly  as  intense 
as  you  imagine,  and  naturally  so.  The  reason  of  this 
is,  we  keep  up  with  events ;  every  day  we  get  the  news, 
and  so  it  comes  in  small  driblets;  we  expect  everything 


Williams  College.    J860-J862  55 

before  it  happens  and  know  it  within  a  few  hours  after 
it  has  happened.  You  get  the  news  in  great  masses — 
the  news  of  six  or  eight  weeks  in  one  lump,  and  you 
think  the  world  is  coming  to  an  end,  imagine  all  kinds 
of  horrible  things,  while  we  are  entirely  cool  and  calm. 
Now  and  then  a  big  excitement  comes  up  and  lasts  a 
day  or  so  and  dies  out;  there  will  be  fighting  soon,  I 
guess  and  hope,  but  the  South  cannot  conquer  and  the 
North  can. 

"I  board  now  at  Charityville,  and  we  walk  four 
miles  a  day  in  going  to  and  from  our  meals.  There 
are  eighteen  fellows  there,  comprising  the  smartest 
fellows  in  the  Senior  class,  and  we  have  high  times. 
I  never  sat  at  a  merrier  table.  The  living  is  plain  but 
neat.  I  pay  $2  per  week.  I  tell  you  all  this  is  good 
maoli*  The  summer  term  of  Junior  year  here  is  the 
most  luxurious  in  college;  the  best  studies — or  rather 
the  most  interesting — and  having,  as  I  do,  such  a 
splendid  home  and  such  kind  friends,  it  almost  seems 
as  if  I  had  nothing  more  to  ask  for.  This  is  almost  a 
'Happy  Valley'  (yet  I  owe  the  barber  for  cutting  my 
hair  and  can't  pay  him  for  a  while  yet;  the  bulldogs  of 
poverty  have  just  now  got  me  foul)." 

As  the  summer  of  1861  approached,  Armstrong 
began  to  feel  the  reaction  from  the  winter  of  hard 
study  and  a  stimulating  climate,  following  as  they 
did  hard  upon  his  taxing  labors  in  Honolulu  and 
the  death  of  his  father.  He  complained  during 
the  winter  just  passed  of  headache  and  fatigue, 
and,  as  soon  as  his  engagements  would  permit, 
started  with  several  other  young  Hawaiians  on  a 
walking  trip  to  the  Adirondacks. 

*  Exceedingly. 


5  6  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

A  series  of  letters  sent  home  from  this  trip  reveal 
Armstrong  as  the  sportsman,  a  role  he  played  with 
poor  grace ;  one  can  see  the  quizzical  eye  with  which 
he  regards  the  deer  and  the  fish  as  they  evade  his 
attempts  to  kill. 

"I  spent  a  week  at  Racket  Lake,  boarding  with 

Madam  W at  the  reduced  fare  of  $2  per  week 

for  everything,  lodging  included.  Time  flew  rather 
slowly  sometimes,  but  there  I  read  Harper's  Magazine  and 
'Sam  Slick,'  and  went  fishing,  too,  now  and  then. 
It  makes  me  feel  riled,  sarcastic,  cruel  and  almost  like 
crying  when  I  think  of  those  pesky  fish.  One  afternoon 
I  pulled  a  clumsy  boat,  containing  a  consumptive 
gentleman  besides  myself,  the  distance  of  twelve  miles 
to  and  from  a  famous  fishing-hole,  and  I  caught  two 
insignificant  trout — one  for  every  six  miles.  Another 
time,  indeed  twice,  I  fished  for  lake  trout  under  a 
scorching  sun  some  three  hours,  and  caught — nothing ! 
At  times  I  felt  furious;  occasionally  it  seemed  like  a 
good  joke,  and  now  and  then  I  would  moralize  as  my 
neglected  hook  lay  beneath  the  glassy  waters.  Did  it 
indicate  that  suasion  was  not  my  forte?  It  certainly 
showed  that  fishing  wasn't,  and  fishing  is  only  an  appeal 
to  the  highest  faculties  of  fishes. 

"I  vainly  endeavored  to  guess  the  secret  cause  of 
my  bad  luck,  whether  it  was  physical  or  metaphysical, 
whether  it  was  fate  or  fortune  that  so  blighted  my 
hopes.  I  especially  noticed  that  all  who  were  with  me 
shared  in  my  misfortunes,  and  I  really  suspect  that 
had  I  lived  in  the  days  of  the  blue  laws,  etc.,  I  should 
have  been  burned  for  witchcraft  or  fishcraft.  And 
now  to  all  fishing  I  say  a  long  farewell.  It's  of  no 
use — none  whatever — I  can't  de  it;  and  my  only  con- 


Williams  College.     J860-J862  57 

solation  is  that  if  a  treacherous  tempest  shall  ever 
consign  me  to  fellowship  with  the  finny  and  scaly 
tribes  they  will  probably  not  injure  one  who  never  did 
them  any  harm.  Henceforth  there  shall  be  no  inter- 
course between  me  and  fishes — the  world  is  wide  enough 
for  us  all. 

"Twice  I  went  'floating*  for  deer;  the  first  time  I 
only  heard  a  deer  in  the  distance — the  next  time  I  saw 
one.  I  saw  his  flashing  eyeballs  afar  off  in  the  darkness. 
I  took  a  nervous  aim  at  the  lustrous  orbs,  fired,  and  off 
he  bounded,  doubtless  singing  to  himself  that  little 
ditty,  '  A  rig-a-jig-jig  and  away  we  go  ! " 

The  opening  of  his  Senior  year  in  college  found 
Samuel  Armstrong  again  in  Williamstown,  eager  to 
enter  upon  the  interesting  course  of  study  presented. 
Although  he  had  an  intimate  personal  acquaintance 
with  Doctor  Hopkins,  he  had  never  yet  come  under 
his  direct  instruction.  Now  for  nine  hours  weekly 
he  sat  beneath  that  great  teacher.  Mark  Hopkins 
was  equally  a  metaphysician  and  a  moralist;  he 
never  let  slip  opportunities  to  enforce  on  his  pupils 
the  homely  everyday  applications  of  the  great 
truths  that  they  were  apprehending ;  his  philosophy 
has  been  called  the  "  philosophy  of  common  sense. " 
Yet  even  more  than  a  thinker  and  a  doer  he  was  a 
believer. 

"None  of  the  members  of  the  class  of  1862,"  wrote  a 
classmate  of  Armstrong,  "could  ever  forget  the  calm 
but  earnest  words  in  which  he  repudiated  Hamilton's 
statement  that '  faith  is  the  organ  by  which  we  apprehend 


5  8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

what   is  beyond   our  knowledge.'     Faith   to   him  was 
the  trust  of  the  soul  reposed  in  a  person."* 

In  the  class-room  the  air  was  electric  with  thought. 
Doctor  Hopkins  encouraged  the  free  asking  of 
questions  and  never  hesitated  to  make  a  point  by 
means  of  a  good  story.  Armstrong  "reveled  in 
the  class-room  discussions,"  says  Doctor  Denison. 
"He  bristled  with  arguments  and  swarmed  with 
new  ideas."  The  opportunities  which  he  was 
having  impressed  him  deeply. 

"The  coming  year  is  fraught  with  responsibility  and 
yet  pleasure — it  must  tell  heavily  on  our  after  lives; 
such  opportunities  never  come  twice;  we  are  treated 
like  and  feel  like  men  now,  and  must  quit  ourselves 
like  men.  Soon  the  greatest  mind  in  New  England 
will  take  and  train  us.  All  our  study  consists  of  reading ; 
we  hardly  commit  anything  to  memory. 

"I'll  tell  you  how  I  study  my  lessons.  My  chum 
takes  up  Hamilton's  Metaphysics  and  reads  it  aloud. 
I  take  my  arm-chair  or  the  lounge  and  listen  to  him. 
In  less  than  an  hour  he  is  through  and  I  am  ready  for 
recitations — that  is  all  the  preparation  I  have,  and  we 
only  recite  twice  a  day." 

In  those  days  a  good  memory  was  not  only 
desirable,  but  necessary,  in  order  to  pass  the  final 
college  examinations.  He  writes,  describing  the 
customary  test  at  the  close  of  the  Senior  year: 

"The  examination  was  oral  and  public.  Doctor 
Davis  and  all  the  professors  were  there,  and  some 

*"Life  of  Mark  Hopkins,"  by  Dr.  Franklin  Carter. 


Williams  College,    J860-J862  59 

others.  We  were  called  to  the  floor  to  answer  questions, 
and  for  two  days  we  sat  eight  hours  per  day  on  hard 
benches.  It  was  severe  work  to  endure  all  this  and 
have  the  contents  of  the  seventeen  books  in  our  heads 
at  the  same  time." 

Besides  the  opportunity  to  study  under  Doctor 
Hopkins's  leadership,  his  Senior  year  brought 
new  social  pleasures.  No  elective  system  divided 
the  classes,  and  with  the  constant  companionship 
grew  up  a  passionate  loyalty  to  class  and  college. 
The  Senior  year  was  a  "perfect  festival"  and 
Williams  queen  among  colleges. 

He  joined  and  became  president  of  a  debating 
society,  and  took  part  in  the  discussions  of 
another  and  became  vice-president  of  a  theo- 
logical society.*  More  and  more  he  grew  to 
enjoy  the  quiet  beauty  of  Williamstown,  seated 
among  the  hills,  with  her  elm-bordered  streets 
and  air  of  academic  retirement.  After  his  usual 
vacation  visit  to  New  York  in  the  spring  of 
1862  he  wrote: 

"I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  its  [New  York's]  tend- 
ency is  demoralising — lost  as  one  is  in  the  great 
throng,  he  feels  like  an  atom,  of  no  particular  account, 
and  loses  by  degrees  that  sense  of  responsibility  to 
God  which  gives  tone  and  character  to  life.  I  like 
New  York  exceedingly,  but  am  afraid  to  make  it  my 
permanent  home." 

*  Having  for  its  aim  the  discussion  of  practical  missionary 
work. 


60  Samuel  Chapman  Atmsttong 

During  this  vacation  and  the  one  following  he 
began  to  feel  more  keenly  the  excitement  of  war 
which  was  thrilling  the  country,  and  the  spring  of 
1862  marked  both  the  opening  of  his  active  career 
as  a  soldier  and  the  close  of  the  peaceful  episode 
of  Williams  town  life. 

Scarcely  two  years  had  elapsed  since  he  had  gone 
there,  but  already  he  had  received  many  of  the  most 
forcible  and  permanent  impressions  of  his  life. 
11  Whatever  good  teaching  I  have  done  has  been  Mark 
Hopkins  teaching  through  me/'  he  said  in  later 
years;  and  it  was  evident  that  the  characteristic 
mental  and  moral  attitude  of  the  teacher  was  truly 
reflected  in  his  pupil.  Mark  Hopkins  had  a  strong 
influence  in  confirming  the  natural  tendency  of 
his  mind  toward  a  philosophical  view  of  life,  but 
no  follower  of  that  sturdy  thinker  ever  allowed  a 
barren  philosophy  to  sap  his  interest  in  every-day 
affairs.  His  philosophy  was  rather  of  the  sort 
that  enabled  him  to  bear  discouragements  with 
cheerfulness,  to  meet  obstacles  with  unfailing 
resources,  and  to  depend  on  no  man's  strength  but 
his  own  in  time  of  need. 

Armstrong  was  indebted  to  Doctor  Hopkins,  too, 
for  the  development  of  a  deep  and  genuine  religious 
feeling.  His  boyish  letters  are  tinged  with  a  con- 
ventionally pious  tone,  but  from  this  time  on  the 
references  to  spiritual  and  religious  matters  are 
more  truly  utterances  of  original  thought  and  feeling : 
perhaps  this  change  was  due  in  part  to  the  fact 


Williams  College.     J860-J862  61 

that  about  the  middle  of  his  college  course  he 
definitely  gave  up  his  project  of  entering  the  minis- 
try; under  the  influence  of  Doctor  Hopkins' s  large 
and  generous  attitude  toward  life  he  became  an 
honester,  simpler  man,  more  modest  about  his 
present  attainment  and  more  ambitious  for  the 
future. 


CHAPTER  III 

LIFE  IN  THE  ARMY.     1862-1865 

EXAMINATIONS  were  over  and  college  honors 
assigned — to.  Armstrong  the  "Ethical  Oration"; 
class-day  was  past,  with  its  absorbing  interests 
of  dance  and  the  supper,  when  "every  man  told 
faithfully  whether  he  was  engaged  or  in  love," 
and  the  last  farewells  were  spoken  under  the  elms 
while  the  morning  sun  streamed  down,  finding 
every  good  fellow  in  "floods  of  tears."  College 
life  ended,  he  returned  to  New  York  to  await  what- 
ever destiny  had  in  store  for  him. 

For  weeks  the  military  situation  had  been  grow- 
ing more  serious.  McClellan  had  met  the  Confed- 
erates in  two  battles — Fair  Oaks  on  May  3ist  and 
Games' s  Mills  on  June  3oth — and  the  Union  Army 
had  suffered  severe  defeats.  But  McClellan  laid 
all  disaster  to  insufficient  support  from  headquarters, 
and  demanded  from  Lincoln  always  more  and 
more  troops,  intimating  that  if  he  had  had  a  larger 
force  these  defeats  would  have  been  victories. 
Ready  to  give  his  generals  every  chance  for  success, 
Lincoln  issued  a  call  for  troops.  The  country 
responded,  "We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham, 

62 


Life  in  the  Atmy.    J862-I865  63 

three    hundred    thousand    strong,"  and  recruiting 
went  forward  briskly. 

Armstrong  still  considered  Hawaii  as  his  father- 
land and  did  not  share  the  burning  patriotism  of 
the  times ;  neither  did  he  evince  any  special  interest 
in  the  cause  of  the  slave;  though  before  long 
the  constant  presence  of  danger  made  him  appre- 
ciate the  need  of  the  sustaining  power  of  a  moral 
principle  and  fostered  in  him  both  hatred  of  slavery 
and  love  of  his  adopted  country — still  the  road  to 
enlistment  in  the  army  was  an  easy  one  for  him; 
his  friends  and  classmates  had  already  entered 
upon  it,  public  opinion  was  urgent,  and  his  own 
temperament  inclined  toward  the  soldier's  life. 
He  expected  at  first  no  more  than  a  place  in  the 
ranks,  but  yielding  to  the  representations  of  his 
friends,  who  assured  him  that  few  volunteer  officers 
were  well  versed  in  tactics  before  enlisting  and 
that  educated  men  were  much  needed  as  officers, 
he  decided  to  accept  a  commission.  The  first  steps 
were  soon  taken.  A  hint  from  a  classmate  to  the 
effect  that  he  had  a  good  chance  of  success  in  Troy, 
New  York,  determined  him  to  go  to  that  city,  where 
a  regiment  was  being  raised  to  be  commanded  by 
Colonel  Willard,  a  regular  officer  of  high  standing. 
In  Troy,  therefore,  he  built  a  shanty  on  one  of  the 
public  squares  and  began,  unknown  as  he  was,  to 
enlist  men  for  a  company  of  which  he  was  to  be 
captain.  His  methods  were  successful  enough  to 
enable  him  to  complete  the  required  quota  before 


64  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

his  competitors,   and  he  was  sworn  in  as    senior 
captain. 

Thus  the  metamorphosis  of  collegian  into  soldier 
was  accomplished.  As  he  studied  philosophy,  so 
he  studied  tactics  and  soldiering,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  Colonel  Willard,  who  interested  himself  in 
the  young  Hawaiian  and  gave  him  much  advice  in 
organizing  and  drilling  his  men.  It  was  a  thoroughly 
congenial  life,  which  he  described  in  a  letter  to  his 
mother.  Who  cannot  picture  the  writer  in  his 
soldier's  clothes  filled  with  the  zest  of  living? 

"HEADQUARTERS  RENSSELAER  COUNTY  REGIMENT, 

"August  9,  1862. 

"I  am  in  sole  charge  of  a  regiment  of  men!  The 
regiment  is  not  yet  completed  by  far,  but  I  am  officer 
of  the  day;  the  adjutant  and  colonel  have  left.  It  is 
nine  o'clock  P.M.,  and  I  am  in  command.  I  am  Captain 
Armstrong;  not  yet  commissioned,  but  hope  to  be 
when  my  company  is  filled  up.  I  have  now  some  fifty- 
odd  men — eighty-three  is  the  minimum.  I  am  seated 
in  the  commander's  tent ;  my  chair  rests  on  the  ground ; 
I  write  by  the  light  of  a  lantern.  I  have  on  a  sword  and 
sash  and  military  overcoat.  The  tents  stretch  across 
the  field  at  a  little  distance  and  look  beautiful.  This 
is  strange  enough  for  me.  I  have  secured  my  position 
by  the  fairest  means.  Such  a  life  I  never  led  before — 
how  this  recruiting  business  lets  one  into  human  nature 
— it  is  the  best  school  I  ever  had. 

"We  put  up  a  little  wooden  shanty  on  Washington 
Square,  Troy.  Had  a  large  sign  painted  on  canvas 
and  stuck  up;  scattered  our  posters  around  and  went 
to  work  recruiting  men.  We  have  met  the  very  meanest 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  65 

and  the  very  best  of  men;  some  enlist  for  money  and 
some  for  love  of  country.  Sometimes  men  of  means 
and  of  family  come  forward  nobly  and  enter  the  ranks 
as  privates. 

"I  have  the  most  respectable  company  by  far.  I 
have  several  fellows  of  sound  principle  from  the  Sabbath- 
schools  in  this  city,  and  intelligent,  good  men  have 
heard  of  my  company  from  some  distance  and  come 
to  join  it.  At  this  very  moment  (two  o'clock  Sunday 
morning)  one  of  my  men  has  been  brought  to  camp 
from  the  city  drunk,  and  is  singing  in  the  guard-house 
in  the  most  comical  manner. 

"I  shall  soon  have  to  go  on  the  'grand  rounds'  with 
a  sergeant  and  two  privates — i.e.,  visit  all  the  stations. 
I  have  just  given  out  a  new  countersign. 

"The  night  is  a  charming  one;  the  moonlight  is 
exquisite,  and  lies  sweetly  and  softly  on  the  Hudson 
River,  on  whose  bank  is  our  camp.  I  now  feel  quite 
wide  awake,  from  being  called  several  times  to  the 
stations  where  riotous  fellows  were  trying  to  run  the 
guards. 

"We  have  been  treated  with  great  kindness,  and  I 
am  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  real  cordial  interest 
which  some  of  the  citizens  take  in  us  and  in  me.  There 
are  some  splendid  men  in  the  city — how  that  fellow  in 
the  guard-house  is  yelling !  I  have  had  no  time  to  go 
into  society  at  all,  and  shall  not,  since  as  soon  as  the 
regiment  is  filled  we  shall  probably  be  ordered  away  to 
a  camp  of  instruction. 

"The  recruiting  service  brings  one  in  contact  with 
human  feelings — no  outside  is  put  on  to  the  enlisting 
officer;  mothers  beg  in  tears  for  him  to  release  their 
sons;  fathers  give  their  assent  to  their  child's  going, 
and  with  a  trembling  hand  and  dimmed  eyes  sign  the 
boy's  release.  One  father  called  it  signing  his  son's 


66  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

death-warrant.  Then  the  Irish  women  come  around 
and  make  themselves  comical  and  pathetic  by  turns. 
I  have  lost  sleep  and  flesh  in  this  work,  but  it  is  only 
working  off  superfluous  stuff.  I  am  hearty  as  a  buck; 
this  life  agrees  with  me.  I  have  held  numerous  patriotic 
meetings  in  the  country,  at  places  often  thirteen  miles 
from  Troy.  At  these  meetings  good  speakers  are 
present  and  we  often  succeed  in  getting  men  after  the 
speeches.  I  seldom  get  back  from  these  meetings  till 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

"To-night  our  company  holds  two  meetings.  About 
half  were  from  the  Baptist  and  other  Sunday-schools  of 
Troy.  They  used  to  call  it  *  the  Sunday-school  Company' 
— boys  whom  their  mothers  wished  me  to  take  if  they 
must  go.  The  rest  were  another  class,  large  country 
fellows,  farmers  from  Pittstown  and  Albia  and  workmen 
from  the  Troy  nail  factory;  a  motley  crowd  of  eighty, 
always  infused  with  fun  by  the  little  city  fellows, 
hardly  bigger  than  their  own  knapsacks." 

On  August  3oth  came  the  word  that  the  regi- 
ment was  to  start  for  the  front.  The  departure 
was  a  dramatic  one,  with  " pretty  girls  in  squads" 
to  say  farewell  to  the  soldiers,  and  shouts  and  tears 
from  the  people  as  the  train  moved  away.  In 
New  York  Armstrong  was  met  by  his  brother,  who 
marched  with  him  and  his  regiment  through  the 
city,  and  who  tells  an  incident  of  the  day.  The 
regiment  had  camped  in  City  Hall  Park  for  a  rest. 
"While  I  sat  conversing  with  him  there  one  of  his 
men  came  up  and  said :  '  I  say,  Captain,  where  can  I 
get  a  drink  of  water  ? '  He  at  once  started  off  to  get 
water  for  him.  I  said :  *  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  not 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  67 

very  good  military  discipline  for  the  captain  to  be 
running  around  for  water  for  his  men/  He  replied: 
'  The  men  must  have  water.  I'm  bound  to  see  that 
they  get  it.'  " 

After  leaving  New  York  the  regiment  continued 
its  inspiring  progress,  sailing  through  the  North 
River,  with  rows  of  gaily  dressed  ladies  on  the 
banks  waving  handkerchiefs  and  flags,  to  the 
Eastern  &  Amboy  Railroad,  where  they  took  a 
train  to  Philadelphia.  Feted  and  fed  gloriously 
there,  they  moved  on  to  Baltimore. 

"The  rest  of  our  journey  lay  through  Maryland.  But 
first,  about  our  transportation.  The  regiment  was 
closely  packed  in  twenty-six  cars,  forty  men  in  a  car — 
not  passenger  cars,  but  close  boxes,  each  containing 
three  long,  frail  benches  made  of  rough  boards.  We 
rode  day  and  night,  and,  being  packed  like  sheep,  there 
was  no  lying  down,  except  on  the  floor,  which  was 
thickly  covered  with  coal  dust  and  dirt. 

"We  finally  reached  Point  of  Rocks,  the  first  place 
where  we  could  at  all  realize  the  war;  here,  as  at  every 
other  point  we  stopped  at  along  the  road,  the  men 
jumped  from  the  cars  in  swarms  and  devoured  every 
mouthful  of  bread  or  any  other  eatable  the  neighbor- 
hood could  furnish  and  that  money  could  procure. 
From  Point  of  Rocks  we  rode  to  Harper's  Ferry,  and 
thence  to  Martinsburg,  Virginia,  which  we  reached 
September  2d,  the  most  advanced  point  of  the  Federal 
lines  and  one  which  should  be  held  only  by  the  most 
experienced  troops.  Here  we  began  camp  life  in 
earnest." 


68  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Martinsburg  was  a  small  town  on  the  Baltimore  & 
Ohio  Railroad,  about  a  day's  march  from  Harper's 
Ferry  toward  the  northwest.  It  was,  as  Armstrong 
says,  an  advanced  post.  The  main  body  of  the 
army  had  been  withdrawn,  after  the  bitter  defeat 
at  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run,  to  the  fortifica- 
tions about  Washington,  where  a  shift  of  com- 
manders was  made,  Pope  being  replaced  by 
McClellan,  though  a  few  regiments  were  scattered 
here  and  there  throughout  the  State  for  protection 
and  defense.  Of  these  the  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fifth  New  York  was  one.  It  was  a  trying 
situation  for  green  troops,  with  alarms  on  every 
hand,  their  ears  kept  constantly  alive  by  reports  of 
the  startling  events  which  were  taking  place  only  a 
few  miles  to  the  north  of  them.  Lee  and  Jackson, 
after  thrilling  Maryland  with  their  daring,  were  pene- 
trating into  Pennsylvania  and  seemed  to  be  threaten- 
ing her  very  capital.  When  the  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fifth  New  York  arrived  at  Martinsburg  the 
men  thought  that  Jackson  was  close  at  their  rear, 
though  in  reality  it  was  not  until  a  week  later  that 
Lee  detached  and  sent  him  southward. 

Thus  Armstrong's  entrance  into  military  life 
was  at  an  anxious  time. 

"My  position  taxed  my  capacities  to  the  utmost.  A 
captain  has  as  much  to  do  as — in  fact,  he  is  practically — 
the  father  of  ninety  children.  Men  in  camp,  sensible 
men,  lose  all  their  good  judgment  and  almost  their  good 
sense;  they  become  puerile,  and  come  to  the  captain  on 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-1865  69 

a  multitude  of  silly,  childish  matters.  A  captain  does 
not  only  his  own,  but  all  the  thinking  of  the  company. 
Well,  we  drilled  at  Martinsburg  and  ate  and  slept,  etc., 
for  a  few  days  quietly,  but  soon  there  was  a  consciousness 
of  peril;  whole  companies  were  sent  out  scouting  and 
on  picket  duty.  The  whole  3,000  men  there  were 
alive  and  ready.  One  night,  when  I  was  officer  of  the 
day,  I  tested  the  efficiency  of  our  guard  when  they 
knew  the  enemy  were  expected,  and  I  ran  the  guard 
five  times  and  seized  six  men's  muskets,  rendering 
them  helpless.  But  I  came  very  near  being  shot  by 
one  guard,  and  would  have  been,  but  he  suspected 
who  I  was. 

"At  Martinsburg  we  considered  ourselves  as  bagged; 
we  were  shut  out  from  all  communication  with  our 
friends,  and  Jackson  was  supposed  to  be  in  the  rear. 
We  lived  among  alarms.  An  old  farmer  came  to  water 
his  horses  near  to  where  one  of  the  pickets  was  standing 
— thirty  hostile  cavalry  were  reported  in  sight — the 
regiment  was  called  to  arms — there  was  mounting  in 
hot  haste  and  some  cheeks  grew  pale.  Three  companies 
started  off  on  double-quick  after  the  old  farmer  and  his 
horse.  Having  scoured  the  neighbourhood  when  it  was 
morally  certain  from  the  cavalry  scouts  that  no  enemy 
was  within  ten  miles,  the  companies  returned — they 
took  a  new  track  and  a  report  came  that  1,000  of  the 
enemy  were  upon  us.  We  were  ordered  out  again — a 
long  rifle-pit  was  dug — some  were  almost  wild  and  some 
were  sick." 

As  Lee  moved  northward  he  found  that  he  would  be 
unable  to  live  on  the  country  as  he  had  hoped,  and 
began  to  consider  how  he  should  open  a  way  through 
the  Shenandoah  Valley  to  his  base  of  supplies. 


70  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

The  way  was  clear  except  for  one  post,  Harper's 
Ferry,  which  was  still  held  by  Union  troops,  though 
by  all  the  rules  of  war  it  should  have  abandoned 
because  of  its  situation  in  a  hostile  country. 
To  capture  this  solitary  stronghold,  therefore, 
Lee  despatched  Stonewall  Jackson  September  loth. 
Jackson's  marches  were  rapid,  and  by  night  he  was 
close  on  Harper's  Ferry.  All  the  troops  available 
were  thrown  in  to  defend  it,  and  among  them  the 
One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  New  York  was 
despatched  from  Martinsburg.  Armstrong  thus 
describes  the  hasty  reenf orcement : 

"One  night,  when  deep  sleep  had  fallen  upon  us, 
when  after  a  day  of  wild  reports  we  were  just  beginning 
to  get  refreshed  most  sweetly,  an  order  came  which 
threw  us  into  the  wildest  confusion.  We  were  to 
retreat  instanter.  Tents  were  struck — a  thousand-and- 
one  articles  had  to  be  picked  up.  Misunderstanding 
reigned  among  the  commanders,  and  confusion  pre- 
vailed throughout;  such  a  wild  bustle,  such  a  thoroughly 
disagreeable  affair  I  hope  never  again  to  participate  in. 
There  was,  of  course,  yelling  all  the  time.  Well,  finally 
the  knapsacks  were  packed,  the  men  fell  into  line,  and 
away  we  marched  at  two  o'clock  A.M.,  September  n, 
1862.  The  men  were  unused  to  walking  and  to  carry- 
ing loads,  and  within  four  miles  300  knapsacks  were 
thrown  away.  The  retreat  was  a  wearisome  affair 
and  hundreds  sat  down  exhausted  by  the  roadside,  not 
caring  what  became  of  them.  The  men  could  not  be 
kept  in  rank;  every  apple-  or  plum-tree  on  or  near  the 
road  was  plundered  and  every  well  or  spring  was  drained 
by  dense  throngs  of  thirsty  wretches.  Order  was 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  71 

turned  into  disorder,  and  the  regiment,  along  with 
others,  moved  like  a  herd  of  driven  cattle.  Companies 
scattered  and  left  no  nucleus ;  a  few  of  us  held  the  main 
body  of  our  men  together;  and  it  was  well,  for  when 
close  upon  Harper's  Ferry  information  came  that  the 
rebels  were  in  strong  force  in  front,  prepared  to  dispute 
our  advance;  only  three  companies  could  be  brought  to 
bear  against  them,  and  mine  was  one.  That  time  the 
affair  seemed  serious,  and  all  looked  a  little  paler. 
Guns  were  loaded,  all  luggage  thrown  away,  and  then 
we  stood  still  as  death — a  time  in  which  a  person  thinks 
like  lightning.  But  there  proved  to  be  no  enemy, 
though  in  twelve  hours  there  were  20,000  rebels  where 
we  stood.  We  marched  from  two  A.M.  till  about  five 
P.M.,  and  less  than  100 — two  skeleton  companies — 
followed  Colonel  Willard  into  camp.  My  company 
was  one  of  the  two. 

"Soon,  however,  the  regiment  straggled  in,  though 
about  100  men  were  captured,  for  the  rebel  cavalry 
pressed  hard  on  our  rear." 

The  story  of  the  surrender  of  Harper's  Ferry  is 
well  known.  The  garrison  and  reinforcements 
were  cooped  up  in  a  basin  between  Loudoun,  Bolivar 
and  Maryland  Heights,  three  towering  hills  which 
surround  the  junction  of  the  Shenandoah  and 
Potomac  rivers.  No  proper  fortification  of  these 
heights  had  been  made,  and  the  Confederates  soon 
captured  them  and  then  stood  pouring  shot,  shell 
and  even  musket  balls  into  the  Union  forces,  so 
close  were  they  to  the  helpless  soldiery  below. 

"When  the  first  shell  struck,"  says  Armstrong,  "the 
scampering  began.  The  Colonel  ordered  us  off  the 


72  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

ground  at  once,  and  then  there  was  an  uproar  and  a 
confusion  that  baffles  the  imagination;  the  infantry, 
cavalry  and  artillery  gathered  up  their  arms  and 
equipage  and  stampeded  like  wildfire.  The  regiment 
flew  to  where  their  arms  were  stacked,  seized  them  and 
ran  in  wild  disorder  to  the  nearest  ravine  for  shelter. 

''I  saw  no  signs  of  order,  but  in  truth  I  thought  of 
and  cared  for  nothing  but  my  company.  By  this  time 
the  shells  from  the  new  battery  were  falling  all  around 
us — their  whizzing  was  terrific.  I  first  rushed  to  the 
arms  and  summoned  my  men.  I  then  halted  them, 
formed  them  in  two  ranks,  and  had  got  a  large  number 
of  them  into  position  when  the  Colonel  came  by  and 
ordered  me  away  at  once.  I  started  them  off  and  kept 
in  the  rear,  bringing  up  and  in  the  later  comers,  and  my 
men  marched  off  in  a  body  for  some  distance  till  I  got 
out  of  the  way  into  a  yard — still,  however,  exposed  to 
the  shell — halted  them  and  re-formed  them,  waited  for 
stragglers,  put  things  into  shape  again,  and  then  pushed 
into  the  road,  which  was  crowded  with  flying  men, 
artillery  wagons,  horses,  and  everything  else. 

"We  kept  together — I  made  them  keep  step — gave 
three  cheers  for  Company  D  with  a  will,  and  marched 
down  into  the  ravine  and  reported  to  my  Colonel,  who 
was  trying  to  rearrange  his  scattered  troops.  Mine 
was  about  the  only  company  that  came  off  in  good  order. 
Captains,  lieutenants  and  higher  officers  'skedaddled' 
in  a  hurry.  But  there  was  no  safe  place  in  that  exposed 
valley;  only  a  dark  cloud  that  overhung  the  battery- 
crowned  heights  around  them  the  next  morning  (Sep- 
tember isth)  prevented  a  slaughter;  and  later  in  the 
morning,  when  the  mist  cleared,  the  whole  force  stood 
helpless  under  a  heavy  artillery  fire,  which  lasted  two 
hours  before  surrender  was  effected.  We  took  our 
men  to  a  little  ravine  and  hid  them  in  a  little  gutter, 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  73 

though  they  were  by  no  means  entirely  concealed.  I 
stood  near  the  edge  of  the  gutter  with  my  first  lieuten- 
ant, in  full  view  and  exposed  to  the  enemy's  fire.  The 
shot  fell  first  at  a  little  distance,  but  soon  they  edged 
over  toward  us;  our  battery  was  all  the  while  replying 
smartly.  We  were  almost  between  the  two  and  just 
in  front  of  our  own.  My  company  was,  I  think,  the 
most  exposed  of  all;  we  were,  at  any  rate,  most  nearly 
in  range.  By  this  time  the  firing  had  become  general 
on  every  side.  Some  six  batteries  of  Jackson's  artillery 
were  pouring  shot  and  shell  into  our  position,  and  the 
shrieking  of  the  missiles  as  they  flew  was  horrible. 
One  eight-pound  shot  struck  where  I  had  been  standing 
and  bounded  over  me;  another  passed  by  me;  and  now 
we  were  assured  that  we  were  going  to  be  cut  up  badly. 
With  my  men  around  me  and  being  conscious  of  their 
gaze,  I  felt  calm,  and  when  the  shot  struck  near  me  I 
didn't  move  a  muscle,  but  when  we  moved  to  a  place 
of  much  greater  safety  and  I  was  sitting  in  the  bushes 
I  felt  much  more  fear  of  the  shells  than  before.  I  tell 
you  it  is  dreadful  to  be  a  mark  for  artillery ;  bad  enough 
for  any,  but  especially  for  raw  troops;  it  demoralizes 
them — it  rouses  one's  courage  to  be  able  to  fight  in 
return,  but  to  sit  still  and  calmly  be  cut  in  two  is  too 
much  to  ask. 

"Here  we  remained  till  a  fresh  battery  was  about  to 
rake  us  through  and  through,  when  down  went  the 
Stars  and  Stripes." 

So  12,500  men  and  much  war  material  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  prisoners  of  war 
were  then  marched  directly  across  the  field,  sub- 
ject to  the  continuous  fire  of  a  battery  which 
had  not  yet  heard  the  news  of  the  surrender. 


74  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

This    march    under   fire,    Armstrong   said,    scared 

him  more  than  anything  else. 

\ 

"There  we  were  on  the  hill,  our  arms  stacked  before 
us  and  waiting ;  soon  the  celebrated  '  Stonewall '  Jackson 
rode  along  our  lines  with  his  staff,  attended  also  by 
our  colonel  and  others.  He  rode  a  common-looking, 
cream-colored  horse  and  was  plainly  dressed  in  citizen's 
clothes — a  gray,  dingy  suit.  He  wore  a  hat  which  his 
men  called  his  'new  hat,'  though  it  was  worn  enough. 
The  costumes  of  his  attendants  and  whole  army  were 
dirty  and  torn,  their  beards  unkempt,  hats  slouchy, 
muskets  rusty,  and  they  all  looked  as  if  a  sirocco  of  red 
dust  had  blown  over  their  gray  uniforms.  The  mounted 
men  rode  well  and  looked  like  brave  men. 

"  After  a  while  we  were  marched  to  our  former  camping 
ground  and  assigned  certain  limits;  to  which,  however, 
they  did  not  restrict  us.  I  went  down  and  bathed  in 
the  Shenandoah  River  with  Pat  Garden,  and  on  the 
way  stopped  and  chatted  a  long  time  with  a  rebel 
captain,  and,  like  all  the  rest,  a  gentleman. 

"Not  a  syllable  of  exultation  do  we  hear  from  them; 
and  with  good  reason,  perhaps — McClellan's  guns  had 
been  roaring  all  day  and  a  huge  battle  was  waging 
some  miles  off  [Antietam] ;  there  might  be  a  slip  'twixt 
cup  and  lip.  The  rebels  deny  themselves  more  than 
we  do;  Jackson's  men  devoured  what  rations  our  men 
had  rejected;  they  also  took  all  of  our  rations  they  could; 
they  gnawed  bones  that  lay  around  our  camps;  they 
often  had  for  one  day's  meal  but  an  ear  of  corn;  and 
when  in  their  march  a  man  falls  down  from  exhaustion 
he  lies  there — we  pick  them  up.  Hence  the  celerity  of 
Jackson's  movements.  Before  the  last  terrible  fight 
at  Manassas  his  whole  force  moved  ninety  miles  in  three 
days  and  at  the  end  of  the  march  went  right  into  action. 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  75 

The  captain  told  me  this.  He  says,  too,  that  Jackson's 
soldiers  never  understood  his  movements,  and  don't 
care  to;  they  'know  he  is  after  the  Yankees,  will  find 
the  Yankees,  and  can  whip  them.' 

"We  were  most  civilly  treated  by  the  rebels,  whom 
we  found  to  be  in  truth  'bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of 
our  flesh';  men  like  ourselves;  only  the  rebels  were  not 
nearly  as  profane  as  our  men — in  fact,  they  used  no 
profane  language  at  all.  They  shamed  us;  they  fought, 
they  said,  not  for  money,  but  for  their  homes,  and 
wanted  the  war  to  cease. 

"Our  system  of  munificent  bounties  and  fine  clothing 
diverts  us  from  the  principle  for  which  we  are  contending 
and  few  of  us  really  know  what  we  are  fighting  for. 
I  felt  the  want  of  a  clear  apprehension  of  it  in  the  hour 
of  danger. 

"The  officers  were  allowed  to  carry  off  their  side  arms, 
and  all  private  property  was  respected;  few  have  been 
treated  as  we  were.  The  day  passed  in  pleasant  and 
cordial  intercourse  with  the  'secesh'  army;  we  slept 
once  more  on  the  field,  and  next  morning  we  were 
marching  off  Bolivar  Heights  to  be  passed  into  our 
own  lines.  Jackson  was  very  anxious  to  get  us  off — in 
fact,  so  anxious  that  he  galloped  off  the  day  before  and 
left  us  with  his  generals.  No  paroles  were  signed  by 
us;  we  were  paroled  as  a  regiment,  and  even  that  parole 
was  left  incomplete." 

It  was  customary  to  place  captured  regiments 
on  parole  near  their  homes,  but  the  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  was  sent  with  some  Illinois  troops 
to  Chicago. 

When  the  plan  to  separate  the  men  so  widely  from 
their  homes  became  known,  it  caused  much  dissat- 


76  Samuel  Chapman  Afmsttong 

isf action,  and  was  no  doubt  responsible  for  much 
of  the  insubordinate  spirit  shown  on  the  march 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty- three  miles  to  Annapolis, 
where  they  were  to  take  the  boat  to  Baltimore  on 
the  way  to  Chicago.  It  was  an  eventful  time  in 
national  affairs,  though  monotonous  and  confused 
enough  to  the  soldiers  of  the  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fifth  New  York.  During  these  "laborious 
wanderings"  the  battle  of  Antietam  was  ended  and 
was  followed  soon  by  the  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion, though  the  news  of  this  event,  so  fraught 
with  meaning  to  Armstrong,  did  not  reach  the 
regiment  till  their  arrival  at  Annapolis.  The  journal 
letter  continues: 

"The  wanderings  of  Ulysses  or  of  ^Eneas  were  more 
romantic,  perhaps,  but  less  laborious  than  ours.  The 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  of  hunger  and  disease  had  to  be 
passed  every  day,  for  we  had  nothing  to  eat  but  maggoty 
bacon  and  hard  bread,  which  Jackson  had  given  us — 
the  best  he  had — and  10,000  men  with  such  rations, 
with  almost  no  blankets  or  overcoats  (they  were  thrown 
away  on  the  march  from  Martinsburg  to  Harper's 
Ferry),  dragging  their  weary  lengths  along,  devouring 
green  and  ripe  fruit,  gulping  down  water  at  every  well, 
and  discouraged  and  demoralized~'by  previous  retreat 
and  disaster,  were  fit  victims  for  sonYe  malady. 

"We  marched  five  consecutive  days.  Of  course,  it 
wasn't  all  dulness.  Sometimes  our  road  would  lie 
through  a  forest,  and  shade  and  cool  breezes  would 
delight  us  with  relief  from  the  dust  which  enveloped  us. 
It  was  a  tough  job  to  keep  our  men  in  order,  and  in 
fact  I  had  it  all  to  do  myself  for  my  company;  my 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  77 

orderly  took  a  short  cut,  my  second  lieutenant  kept 
nosing  around  for  something  to  eat,  and  my  first 
lieutenant  was  just  able  to  keep  up,  being  a  feeble  man. 
Much  of  the  time  I  was  alone  with  the  company,  and  all 
the  time  I  had  the  work  to  do  and  did  it  as  well  as  I 
could.  At  night  I  found  the  best  places  possible  for 
them — gave  their  comfort  the  precedence.  Sometimes  I 
got  them  a  good  mess  of  hot  coffee — and  lost  nothing 
by  so  doing.  Such  are  just  the  times  when  men  see 
the  real  animus  of  their  officers;  some  captains,  as  soon 
as  the  regiment  halted  for  the  night,  would  scoot  off 
with  their  officers  to  the  best  house  they  could  find — 
and  their  men  have  cursed  them  for  it  and  remembered 
it.  To-day  when,  of  the  several  thousand  paroled 
troops  here,  only  our  regiment  can  be  made  to  drill — 
the  rest  refusing  point  blank — my  company  is,  they  say, 
the  most  subordinate  and  dutiful  in  the  12 5th  I  exact 
the  same  obedience  that  I  always  did,  and  it  has  been 
invariably  given ;  not  a  man  have  I  punished  for  mutinous 
conduct,  and  yet  the  most  experienced  captain  of  us 
to-day  sent  some  forty  men  to  jail  for  disobedience. 

"My  men  talk  like  all  the  rest;  they  think  they  ought 
not  and  cannot  be  made  to  drill,  but  when  ordered  to 
1  fall  in '  not  a  man  has  refused  as  yet.  I  believe  they 
are  repaying  my  attention  to  them.* 

"  No  promised  land  greeted  our  eyes  as  we  approached 
the  lousy  encampment  at  Annapolis  (Sunday  P.M., 
September  22d);  the  thought  of  seeing  the  ocean  had 
given  me  new  vigor  on  the  road  thither,  but  we  could 
not  see  it.  We  slept  under  the  trees;  next  day  built 
brush  huts  and  lay  in  them,  doing  nothing  but  eat  and 
sleep,  till  we  fell  in  and  marched  a  mile  and  a  half  to 

*  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  and  all  letters  written  by 
Armstrong  during  his  army  life  were  intended  to  be  read  by  his 
mother  and  sisters  only. 


78  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Annapolis — a  den  of  rampant  secessionists — took  boat 
for  Baltimore — two  and  a  half  hours  on  Chesapeake 
Bay — marched  through  Baltimore  and  saw  some  of 
the  beauties  of  the  'Monumental  City,'  and  took  those 
everlasting  box-and-bench  cars  for  Chicago — forty  men 
in  each  car;  rations  consisted  of  hard  bread  and  partly 
cooked  fat  pork.  We  traveled  slowly  night  and  day. 
I  slept  nights  on  a  board  eighteen  inches  wide — a  bench 
twenty-six  inches  high — my  head  resting  on  the  legs  of  a 
noble  fellow  of  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-sixth  New 
York  Regiment  whose  ankle  was  sprained  at  the  battle 
of  Maryland  Heights;  we  formed  a  strong  attachment; 
such  private  soldiers  would  make  an  invincible  army." 

The  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  was  encamped 
at  Camp  Douglas,  near  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan, 
where  it  remained  from  September  2Qth  to  Novem- 
ber 2 1  st.  The  time  passed  there  was  not  altogethei 
irksome  to  Armstrong.  He  saw  much  in  the  wide 
stretches  of  the  lake  to  enjoy  and  to  remind  him 
of  his  sea-girt  home,  and  found  friends  in  Chicago 
and  duties  in  camp  to  make  the  time  pass  quickly. 

''CAMP  DOUGLAS,  7  P.M.,  October,  1862. 
"I'll  tell  you  the  scene.  On  the  right  wing  a  crowd 
of  fellows  are  singing  boisterously  the  '  Star-Spangled 
Banner  ' ;  on  the  center  of  the  battalion  there  is  a  prayer 
meeting;  just  to  the  left  of  my  tent  they  are  singing 
'Marching  Along';  they  have  just  sung  *  There  is  rest 
for  the  weary.'  It  is  wonderful  how  these  Sabbath- 
school  airs  have  such  popularity  and  such  a  control 
over  the  feelings  of  strong  men;  there  is  nothing  that 
the  soldier  likes  so  well  as  these  simple,  sweet  melodies. 
The  night  is  cold  and  the  moonlight  is  lovely,  extremely 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  79 

so.  [I  have]  a  letter  from  mother  and  one  from  Ellen. 
Ellen  mentioned  her  visit  to  Rana  and  Ulapalakua; 
these  names  waken  memories  that  refresh  me.  And 
the  'church  sewing  society.'  I  suppose  the  tow-headed 
fellows  who  once  only  cared  for  the  coffee-room  and  for 
all  sorts  of  shindies  in  corners  and  out  of  doors  now 
study  their  neckties  faithfully,  select  their  'Mary  Anns,' 
and  go  home  with  palpitating  hearts — generally  two 
of  such  hearts  get  together,  some  way  or  other.  A  '  hog 
hunt'  in  Hanalei — of  course  no  hog,  but  the  dogs  and 

the  horses  and  busy  preparations — Sam  A would 

generally  bring  some  tall  yellow  dog  that  Ponto  would 
cause  to  quake  by  showing  his  teeth  just  once — all  this 
I'd  like;  the  dashing  gallop,  the  halt  of  the  cavalcade, 
just  to  shoot  a  little  'kolea'  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off — 
the  prior  hunt  to  catch  the  unruly  dogs,  the  stealthy 
advance  of  the  hunter  and  final  escape  of  the  bird.  Then 
a  moonlight  ride  with  the  Punahou  girls — three  cheers 
for  them — fine  girls  they  are;  will  compare  with  any. 
Long  live  the  omnibus  and  Harvey  the  driver,  and  all 
the  animals  that  draw  it ! 

"  Here  I  am,  a  soldier  and  in  a  queer  fix — how  came  I 
here?  But  my  childhood's  and  also  my  manhood's 
home  will  always  be  a  Mecca  to  my  thoughts;  they  go 
back  and  travel  from  mountain  top  to  distant  horizon; 
they  leap  from  island  to  island  and  from  one  mansion 
to  another — I  cannot  follow  them." 

"  NOVEMBER  10,  1862. 

"I  have  just  come  from  court,  where  we  are  trying 
an  artillery  first  lieutenant.  Our  court  is  a  terror 
to  all  the  regiments  and  brigades  here.  We  have 
power  over  life  itself.  We  have  good  times  in  court, 
telling  stories,  eating  apples,  and  smoking.  They  are 
trying  to  teach  me  to  smoke  and  I  take  a  whiff  now  and 


8o  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

then,  but  it  don't  go  at  all.  I  am  not  made  for  a  smoker. 
I  am  kept  constantly  busy  all  the  time. 

"I  am  sick  of  the  parole.  I  wish  to  be  in  the  field. 
It  galls  me  to  think  of  my  chum,  Arch.  Hopkins,  in 
the  advancing  army  and  I  here ;  but  we  may  be  relieved 
soon — shall  be  if  Burnside  makes  a  big  stroke. 

' '  I  have  a  first-rate  company  of  boys — they  obey  me 
better  than  I  ever  obeyed  any  one  else." 

At  length  the  regiment  was  returned  to  Wash- 
ington for  further  duty. 

"  MICHIGAN  SOUTHERN  RAILROAD, 
"  NOVEMBER  21,  1862. 

"Chicago  is  about  five  miles  in  the  rear.  We  are 
dashing  over  the  prairie  in  elegant  passenger  cars.  I 
am  with  my  company,  or  a  part  of  it — forty-eight  of 
us  in  one  car.  It  is  nearly  dark.  I  have  just  witnessed 
a  glorious  sunset  on  the  prairie.  I  am  writing  by  the 
dim  light  of  a  car  kerosene  lamp — the  boys  are  all  gay; 
there  is  a  banjo  a-going,  entertaining  us  with  some 
rampageous  jig  —  others  are  singing  the  beautiful 
Sunday-school  melody,  'We  Shall  Know  Each  Other 
There.'  It  is  a  scene  that  cannot  be  described — it  is 
never  the  same  for  two  successive  minutes ;  a  little  while 
ago  all  hands  were  singing  '  John  Brown '  with  inspiring 
effect ;  now  all  are  chattering  like  guinea-hens.  We  have 
stopped  a  moment  for  wood  and  water.  The  scene 
within  is  intensely  human,  and  that  outside  intensely 
natural — divine;  there  is  a  long,  narrow  belt  of  red 
along  the  horizon ;  the  heavens  are  beclouded. 

"We  are  moving  again  and  I  can  hardly  write  legibly. 
We  are  in  for  a  four  days'  ride  and  are  probably  bound 
to  Washington — whether  to  be  sent  into  barracks  or 
to  Texas,  with  Hunter  to  South  Carolina  or  with 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  81 

Burnside  to  Richmond,  we  know  not — this  is  a  most 
uncertain  life. 

"This  has  been  a  day  of  breaking  up  and  an  awfully 
hard  day  for  me,  having  no  officers;  one  having  resigned, 

the  first  lieutenant,  and  Tom  S gone  home  on 

a  furlough.  I  have  lost  from  my  company  about  six- 
teen by  desertion;  the  regiment  has  lost  about  300. 
After  we  were  paroled  the  men  had  little  conscience 
about  desertion.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  keep  a 
paroled  regiment  together. 

"The  boys  are  getting  quieter  as  it  grows  dark  and 
many  are  asleep,  though  it  is  no  later  than  six  o'clock; 
the  evenings  are  very  long;  it  is  dark  at  about  5  p.  M. 

"My  faithful  servant,  John  Q ,  sits  by  my  side. 

1  sometimes  call  him  my  'Man  Friday'  or  'My   Thief.' 
He   is    singularly   devoted.     He   is    a   little    Canadian 
Frenchman — talks   the   funniest   English — has    a  wife 
and  four  children  in  Troy.     I  have  detailed  him  from 
my  company  to  wait  upon  me  and  nothing  can  equal 
his  fidelity.     He  makes  fires,  does  washing,  blacks  my 
boots,  picks  up  my  clothes  when  I  throw  them  down, 
looks  at  every  object  he  sees  as  created  for  my  comfort, 
and  if  he  thinks  anything  will  contribute  to  that  he 
takes  it — hence  I   call  him  my  thief.     He  is  utterly 
indescribable.     I    can    hardly    look    at    him    without 
laughing.     Thinking  that  his  sitting  by  me  would  inter- 
fere with  my  writing,   he  has  been  standing  up  and 
walking  about  the  car  for  an  hour.     Such  is  my  servant 
Q ;  I  have  not  told  the  half." 

The  regiment  arrived  at  Washington  November 

2  5th,  and  for  the  next  three  months  it  wandered 
among    the   minor   military    stations    of   Virginia. 
Both  officers  and  men  were  ignorant  alike  of  the 


82  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

meaning  of  their  frequent  changes  of  camp  and  of 
the  events  going  on  about  them.  They  knew 
only  the  discomfort  of  cold  and  snow  and  night 
marches,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pleasures 
of  camp-life,  comrades  round  a  camp-fire,  the 
arrival  of  home  letters,  impromptu  gaieties  among 
the  officers,  and  the  never-failing  charm  of  life 
under  canvas. 

The  war  dragged  on  during  this  most  discouraging 
of  winters.  In  the  month  of  November  the  North 
had  been  cheered  by  the  news  of  Union  victories 
in  the  West;  but  McClellan,  in  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  still  awaited  that  condition 
of  entire  readiness  to  which  he  looked  for  success. 
At  length,  wearied  by  waiting,  the  President 
removed  McClellan  and  appointed  Burnside  to  his 
command.  Burnside,  unable  to  resist  the  popular 
clamor  for  action  at  any  cost,  fought  the  disastrous 
battle  of  Fredericksburg  on  December  iyth  and 
after  it  lay  fronting  the  foe,  but  unwilling  and 
unable  to  join  battle. 

The  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  New  York 
played  a  humble  part  in  these  larger  movements ;  held 
as  a  reserve  force  for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
it  was  shifted  here  and  there  in  conformity  with  its 
movements. 

Armstrong  thoroughly  enjoyed  this  winter  cam- 
paign. His  health  was  excellent.  "I  do  nothing 
but  eat,  sleep  and  study  tactics,"  he  wrote.  Indeed, 
with  no  harassing  home  cares,  in  no  immediate 


Life  in  the  Atmy*    J862-J865  83 

danger  of  battle,  and  in  a  congenial  position,  with 
good  pay,  why  should  he  not  be  happy?  He 
expected  to  save  most  of  his  salary  for  the  year 
and  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  retire  from  the  army, 
if  indeed  the  war  was  not  over  by  that  time. 

But  in  spite  of  the  easy-going  camp  life,  this 
positive  responsible  experience  in  affairs  was  grad- 
ually maturing  him.  He  wrote  to  his  mother  and 
sisters : 

"I  am  sorry  you  felt  so  about  my  enlisting.  No 
great  advantage  is  gained  without  risk,  and  the  service 
has  so  far  been  of  the  greatest  advantage  to  me.  It  has 
been  worth  far  more  to  me  than  so  many  months  of 
college  life.  I  have  not  found  it  demoralizing.  I 
have  gained  rather  than  lost  spiritually  since  I  entered  it. 

"Ladies  here  visit  the  hospitals  and  do  something 
for  the  needy;  fashionable  women  do  this  because  of 
the  promptings  of  their  better  natures,  not  always  for 
the  popularity  of  the  thing.  Now  at  this  time  and 
distance  I  look  back  upon  the  few  times  I  taught  in 
the  Kawaiahao  Sunday-school  with  far  greater  satis- 
faction than  upon  my  labours  in  the  *  Foreign  Church' 
Sunday-school.  I  should  be  glad  to  hear  that  all  the 
family  had  begun  to  labor  in  the  Kawaiahao  Sunday- 
school,  though  in  order  to  do  it  they  did  not  attend  the 
other.  I  hope  the  girls  will  imitate  you  in  pursuing  an 
earnest  philanthropic  policy  worthy  of  their  father. 
I  never  got  one-quarter  as  much  real  good  from  English 
preaching  as  I  did  from  teaching  those  native  children. 

"  It  is  pleasant  at  the  time  to  sit  under  good  preaching 
and  hard  to  give  it  up;  but  should  the  girls  attend 
Fort  Street  church  evenings — as  father  did — and 
Sunday  mornings  teach  the  Kanaka  children,  and  on 


84  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

the  way  home  drop  in  at  the  hospital  and  just  go  from 
bed  to  bed  and  speak  a  word,  or  go  out  among  the 
native  houses  back  of  our  house,  there  they  will  find 
sick  who  will  greatly  need  little  comforts;  old  women 
are  plenty  around  our  neighborhood  who  are  desti- 
tute— help  such. 

"This  is  my  earnest  advice  from  the  field,  before  a 
wary,  subtle  and  powerful  enemy.  No  one  in  the 
wild  scene  around  me — of  men  building  huts  and  fires, 
some  shouting  and  laughing  or  swearing,  of  snow  falling 
in  beautiful  myriad  flakes — no  one,  I  say,  would  imagine 
that  I  am  writing  such  counsel  on  this  old  box-cover. 
But  I  am  in  earnest.  My  position  and  its  possibilities 
cause  me  to  look  at  things  seriously. 

"If  you  find  some  are  better  sympathisers  in  your 
good  work  than  others,  just  quietly  have  less  to  do 
with  the  latter  and  more  with  the  former.  Let  them 
alone  in  word  and  in  deed.  Don't  be  discouraged  if 
the  devil  takes  a  new  tack  to  defeat  his  enemies  by 
setting  them  at  loggerheads.  It  will  come  out  all 
right." 

Regarding  his  own  part  in  the  great  struggle 
there  is  a  securer  tone;  he  wrote  the  Christmas  Eve 
before  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  went  into 
effect : 

"I  learn  to-night  that  Burnside  and  Seward  have 
resigned.  What  to  do  as  things  now  look  I  don't 
know — what  am  I  fighting  for?  But  the  first  day  of 
January  is  at  hand — possibly  the  greatest  day  in 
American  history — when  the  sons  of  Africa  shall  be 
free.  To  wait  until  that  day  I  am  content,  and  then  I 
shall  know  for  what  I  am  contending — for  freedom  and 
for  the  oppressed.  I  shall  then  be  willing  to  go  into  the 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  85 

fight,  and  you  will  feel  less  grieved  if  I  fall  for  such  a 
cause.  You  and  I  will  then  have  occasion  to  congratu- 
late ourselves  that  our  family  is  represented  in  the 
greatest  struggle  of  modern  times  for  the  most  sacred 
principles. 

"I  tell  you  thinking  men  are  more  and  more  largely 
of  the  opinion  that  the  Southern  Confederacy  is  a  fixed 
fact,  and  I  am  inclined  to  it,  but  I  have  none  the  less 
faith  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  right.  Possibly  God 
will  crown  our  arms  with  success  after  the  ist  of 
January,  for  then  we  shall  be  fighting  for  a  principle. 
I  am  curious  to  see  what  will  turn  up.'* 

A  letter  written  January  i5th  to  a  college  friend 
strikes  a  vein  of  reflective  philosophy  which  appears 
in  his  letters  with  increasing  frequency  and  became 
in  later  life  the  dominating  influence  in  his  thoughts. 

"I  know  it  is  dangerous  to  tell  of  one's  deep  purposes — 
the  profoundest  resolutions  are  so  weak;  but  without 
sickness  or  mutilation  I  shall  not  hope  to  see  my  friends. 
So  long  as  I  am  of  the  army  I  shall  be  in  it,  unless,  like 
you,  I  am  laid  down  by  sickness,  and  there  is  no  present 
prospect  of  that.  I  like  the  army  and  I  am  devoted,  I 
trust,  to  our  cause.  Besides,  a  soldier's  life  is  a  constant 
life,  and  for  that  I  am  the  more  satisfied  with  it;  we 
profess  to  be  soldiers  and  are  soldiers ;  how  many  of  our 
other  professions  are  realized  in  the  same  manner? 
I  tell  you,  chum,  civil  life  is  more  or  less  of  a  humbug — 
rather  more.  Christian  men  walk  arm  in  arm  with  the 
devil,  and  are  in  thousands  of  cases — shall  I  say  it? — 
hypocrites.  Since  I  entered  the  army  I  have  become 
more  hilarious,  more. jocose  than  before,  but  I  believe 
an  honester  man. 


86  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"We  hold  ourselves  in  readiness  to  fight,  and  if 
prepared  to  sacrifice  life,  how  much  more  prepared  to 
sacrifice  things  of  smaller  moment;  our  position  keeps 
us  in  a  generous,  manly  frame  of  mind. 

"Well,  chum,  I'm  rolling  over  lots  of  wild  schemes  in 
my  head,  and  D.  V.  one  of  these  days  I'll  strike  out;  I 
want  you  along.  But  mind — effort  leads  to  success — 
there  is  a  point  where  one  ends  and  the  other  begins, 
and  here  lies  the  difference  in  men.  One  man  will  not 
do  a  thing  until  he  snail  see  exactly  where  this  point 
shall  be ;  another  cares  not  if  between  where  effort  stops 
and  success  commences  there  is  a  gulf,  be  it  ever  so  wide. 
Such  are  the  extremes ;  men  are  ranged  all  along  between 
— I  rather  lean  toward  the  latter  extreme.  Where  the 
eye  of  sense  sees  no  continuity,  but  labor  and  its 
results  widely  separate,  a  certain  faith  steps  in  and  binds 
them  together,  and  trusting  to  this  faith  some  men  will 
go  forward  as  freely  as  if  there  were  no  break,  no  doubt, 
for  just  here  is  the  place  of  doubt." 

There  were  a  few  colored  servants  in  the  regiment, 
from  whom  he  received  his  first  impressions  of  the 
Negro  race.  He  at  first  thought  them  "worse  than 
Kanakas, "  but  began  presently  to  respect  them  in 
theory,  if  not  in  practice. 

"Chum,  I  am  a  sort  of  abolitionist,  but  I  haven't 
learned  to  love  the  Negro.  I  believe  in  universal 
freedom;  I  believe  the  whole  world  cannot  buy  a  single 
soul.  The  Almighty  has  set,  or  rather  limited,  the 
price  of  one  man,  and  until  worlds  can  be  paid  for  a 
single  Negro  I  don't  believe  in  selling  or  buying  them. 
I  go  in,  then,  for  freeing  them  more  on  account  of 
their  souls  than  their  bodies,  I  assure  you." 


Life  in  the  Army.    1862-5865  87 

This  mention  of  the  Negro  is  the  last  for  several 
months — indeed,  until  he  took  command  of  a 
regiment  of  colored  soldiers  in  November  of  the 
following  year. 

During  the  month  of  February  the  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  was  removed  to  Centre ville, 
Virginia,  where  it  remained  in  camp  for  three  months. 
This  was  a  period  which  fulfilled  a  young  officer's 
dreams  of  delight  and  which  Armstrong  has  de- 
scribed as  follows: 

"Summer  reigns  in  Centreville — the  place  is  lovely — 
windy  and  awfully  dusty.  Our  camp  looks  gay.  Along 
the  line  of  privates'  tents  there  are  double  rows  of  young 
cedar  and  pine  trees  which  have  been  transplanted,  and 
they  create  a  cool  shade  for  the  men  and  make  our  camp 
really  romantic.  There  are  over  six  tall  cedar  trees 
around  and  overshadowing  my  tent,  a  bower  of  ever- 
greens in  front  and  two  small  tents  in  the  rear,  all 
connecting.  I  call  it  luxury.  I  like  it.  Camp  life  is 
gay,  though  there  are  interruptions,  of  course.  I'll 
tell  you  my  pleasures.  One  is  visiting  the  pretty 
secesh  girls  in  the  neighborhood.  I  am  on  very  good 
terms  with  many  of  them  and  we  have  lively  times. 
Generally  go  out  to  see  them  (in  fact,  we  only  can) 
on  Sunday  afternoons.  There  are  also  many  sensible 
people,  but  being  young  and  foolish  I  incline  to  the 
aforesaid  girls.  Then  it  is  pleasant  to  go  out  after 
dress  parade  and  hear  the  brigade  band  play  at 
'  retreat '  (  sundown) . ' ' 

While  in  Centreville  he  was  detailed  to  serve  on 
one  or  more  military  courts-martial,  a  duty  to 


88  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

which  he  was  often  thereafter  subject,  and  one 
which — though  he  calls  it  "too  dreadful,  too  sick- 
ening"— yet  carried  with  it  a  certain  prestige  as  a 
recognition  of  an  officer's  judgment  and  standing. 

But  Centreville,  lovely,  dusty,  windy  Centre- 
ville,  with  its  picnics  and  pretty  girls,  was  an 
episode  which  came  too  quickly  to  a  close.  June 
25th  came  the  order  that  the  One  Hundred  and 
Twenty-fifth  was  to  break  camp  and  join  the 
famous  Second  Army  Corps,  then  commanded  by 
General  Hancock  at  Gum  Springs.  This  move 
brought  Armstrong  at  once  to  the  front  of  the 
stage  of  war. 

While  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  had  been 
encamped  at  Centreville  the  battle  of  Chancellors- 
ville  had  been  fought,  not  far  away.  This  striking 
Confederate  victory  encouraged  Lee  in  the  belief 
that  the  time  had  come  for  an  invasion  of  the 
North.  Nothing  could  so  effectively  hamper  the 
movements  of  Grant,  who  was  hammering  at  the 
gates  of  Vicksburg,  as  the  fact  that  some  great 
Union  city  was  in  danger.  So  without  loss  of  time 
Lee  pushed  northward  into  Pennsylvania,  and  after 
him  followed  Hooker  with  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac, which  he  had  successfully  reorganized  and 
which  was  eager  for  a  fight.  The  One  Hundred 
and  Twenty-fifth  marched  rapidly  to  Gum  Springs, 
and  together  with  the  rest  of  the  Second  Corps 
was  hurried  northward  toward  Gettysburg,  where 
the  whole  army  was  gathering  under  General  Meade. 


Life  in  the  Army.    I862-J865  89 

The  battle  of  Gettysburg,  Armstrong's  first  trial 
of  real  warfare,  is  described  at  length  in  letters  to 
his  mother.  It  seems  as  if  he  craved  to  make  clear 
to  her  the  many  and  vivid  impressions  which 
thronged  his  brain  after  the  battle  was  over.  But 
the  part  played  by  any  one  man  in  a  great  battle 
runs  like  a  single  thread  through  the  great  fabric 
of  the  whole  contest,  and  in  order  to  be  compre- 
hended must  be  seen  in  relation  to  the  whole. 

On  the  morning  of  July  2,  1863,  the  Union  and 
Confederate  forces  were  drawn  up  in  two  curved 
confronting  lines,  separated  by  a  distance  varying 
fr©m  half  a  mile  to  two  miles.  The  intervening 
space  was  broken  by  wooded  areas  and  a  brook 
or  two,  and  bounded  on  the  south  by  the  hill  of 
Round  Top ;  on  the  north  it  was  open  toward  the 
town  of  Gettysburg.  The  right  wing  of  the  Federal 
forces,  stretching  toward  the  northeast,  embraced 
Cemetery  Hill,  near  which,  within  the  range  both 
of  its  batteries  and  the  Confederate  guns  of 
Seminary  Ridge,  the  Second  Corps  made  its  first 
appearance  on  the  battle-field. 

On  the  afternoon  of  July  2d  Lee  advanced  to 
the  attack.  He  was  met  by  the  Third  and  Second 
Corps,  which  suffered  severely  but  succeeded  in 
repulsing  him.  Of  this  day  Armstrong  writes, 
after  all  is  over: 

"  BATTLE-FIELD  NEAR  GETTYSBURG. 
"The  night  before  the  battle  we  lay  out  in  the  woods, 


QO  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

five  miles  from  Gettysburg.  All  was  quiet,  and  as  I 
was  lying  on  my  back  in  the  open  air,  looking  up  into 
the  sky  through  the  tall  and  leafy  oak  trees,  I  wondered 
what  would  happen  on  the  morrow.  I  knew  I  might 
at  that  hour  on  the  night  following  be  as  inanimate  as 
the  sods  under  me  and  my  soul  have  gone  up  to  its  last 
account.  I  felt  no  quaking,  but  an  anxiety  for  my  own 
future  condition  and  for  those  who  loved  me  on  earth. 
I  soon  fell  asleep  and  slept  soundly. 

"On  the  2d  of  July  we  were  drawn  up  between 
two  batteries  (one  Confederate,  one  Union)  and  sus- 
tained a  severe  cannonade,  lying  on  our  faces  in  an 
orchard — that  is,  most  of  us.  I  preferred  to  take  my 
chance  standing  and  watching  the  fight  and  seeing  the 
skirmishers  and  sharpshooters  pick  each  other  off. 
After  some  time,  about  5  P.  M.,  our  brigade  was  marched 
off  to  the  left  center,  formed  into  line  and  charged  into  a 
valley  full  of  rebs  who  were  sheltered  by  a  dense  growth 
of  underbrush. 

"As  we  advanced  with  fixed  bayonets  and  began 
to  fire,  they  yelled  out  from  the  trees,  '  Don't  fire 
on  your  own  men ! '  We  ceased  firing,  and  the  rebs 
who  had  so  deceived  us  gave  us  '  Hail  Columbia '  and 
dropped  some  of  our  best  men.  Those  fellows  were 
the  famous  '  Louisiana  Tigers ' — but  we  rushed  at  them 
with  fixed  bayonets,  drove  them  out  of  the  brush  and 
then  plunged  our  fire  into  them  as  they  ran.  Many 
were  within  pistol  shot,  and  the  old  spindle-legged,  short- 
coat-tailed  fellows  fell  headlong  by  the  dozen;  the 
bullets  whistled  by  me  by  scores,  but  I  didn't  mind 
them,  though  all  the  while  perfectly  conscious  of 
what  might  happen.  Well,  we  peppered  away  at  them 
and  charged  furiously  and  drove  them  like  sheep.  But 
we  were  ordered  to  fall  back  amid  an  enfilading  fire 
from  a  rebel  battery.  We  fell  back  and  returned  in 


Life  in  the  Arniy.     J862-J865  91 

order  to  our  old  ground,  losing  many  men  from  the 
rebel  canister  and  grape. 

"This  was  our  first  fight — my  first;  a  long  and  great 
curiosity  was  satisfied.  Men  fell  dead  all  around  me. 
The  sergeant  who  stands  behind  me  when  in  line  was 
killed,  and  heaps  were  wounded.  In  the  charge  after 
the  rebs  I  was  pleasantly,  though  perhaps  dangerously, 
situated.  I  did  not  allow  a  man  to  get  ahead  of  me." 

By  means  of  this  charge  the  enemy  was  driven 
back  and  the  regiment  retired  slightly.  It  had  lost 
one-fifth  of  its  men,  but  the  opposing  force — the 
'Louisiana  Tigers' — was  completely  shattered  and 
lost  its  regimental  existence.  Out  of  1,700  men  it 
had  lost  1,400. 

The  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  encamped 
for  the  night  on  Cemetery  Hill.  Here  it  lay  pre- 
paring for  the  terrible  work  of  the  morrow,  which 
culminated  in  the  famous  Pickett's  charge.  The 
letter  continues: 

"Next  day  I  was  sent  to  the  line  of  skirmishers  with 
my  division  (two  companies).  It  was  an  ugly  place — 
the  two  lines  lay  about  100  yards  apart,  rather  less  in 
some  places,  and  the  sharpshooters  were  butchering 
each  other  to  no  purpose  whatever.  Both  were  crouched 
down  flat  on  their  faces  behind  fences  or  in  the  grass, 
and  away  they  popped  all  the  morning,  killing  and  wound- 
ing quite  a  number.  I  took  position  on  the  advanced 
line,  lying  down  behind  some  rails;  but  I  was  often  on 
my  feet  to  give  orders,  and  then  I  would  always  hear 
bullets  whistle  over  and  past  me.  Finally  we  were 
ordered  to  charge  the  rebel  skirmishers.  It  was  a  foolish 


92  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

order — a  fatal  one.  I  led  that  charge,  if  any  one  did, 
jumping  to  my  feet  and  waving  my  sword  for  the  men 
to  follow,  and  rushing  toward  the  sharpshooters,  some 
of  whom  ran  on  our  approach,  while  others  waited  to  pick 
off  a  few  of  us.  There  were  four  captains  in  that  charge ; 
two  were  killed  near  me  and  one  wounded.  I  escaped, 
though  I  was  within  fifty  yards  of  the  rebs.  We  drove 
them  and  took  their  line,  but  they  rallied  in  great  force 
and  deliberately  advanced.  Then  it  was  hot.  The 
bullets  flew  like  hail  over  my  head  and  it  was  not  safe 
lying  down.  Many  were  hit  near  me,  and  after  nearly 
all  our  men  had  fallen  back  I  ran  back  to  the  former 
line,  which  we  held.  The  charge  was  unnecessary,  but 
it  was  ordered. 

"After  this  we  ceased  firing  on  both  sides,  and  after 
a  two  hours'  lull  the  heaviest  cannonade  of  the  war 
was  opened,  we  lying  between  the  two  fires — not  per- 
fectly safe,  for  the  shells  often  burst  too  soon  and  the 
fragments  fell  around  us. 

"The  firing  was  tremendous.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  impressive  or  magnificent. 

"Finally  the  rebels  came  out  of  the  woods  in  three 
long  lines  several  hundred  yards  apart,  with  glittering 
bayonets  and  battle-flags  flying.*  It  was  grand  to  see 
those  masses  coming  up,  and  I  trembled  for  our  cause. 
I  rushed  to  the  skirmish  line,  saw  our  opportunity  (I 
was  then  with  the  reserves),  returned  and  assembled 
the  reserves,  and  with  the  men  and  officers  of  the 
Eighth  Ohio  Volunteers  hurried  toward  the  flank  of  the 
rebel  lines  of  battle  and  gave  them  fits.  Then  it  was 
grand.  I'll  tell  you  my  fix.  I  was  exposed  to  the  fire 
of  our  own  artillery  from  the  rear,  from  the  rebel 
batteries  in  front,  and  from  the  musketry  of  their  line 
of  battle.  Many  around  me  were  hit,  but  Providence 

*Pickett's  charge. 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  93 

spared  me,  although  I  was  in  advance  and,  if  anybody 
did,  led  that  attack.  Some  officers  skulked  behind 
a  house.  I  felt  no  fear,  though  I  never  forgot  that  any 
moment  I  might  fall.  The  responsibility  and  the  high 
duty  assigned  me  sustained  me,  and  it  was  wonderful 
that  my  own  men  didn't  shoot  me;  they  were  so  excited 
and  were  behind  me. 

"Well,  we  turned  the  rebel  flank,  and  no  wonder,  for 
we  did  terrible  execution;  besides,  our  batteries  and 
line  of  battle  in  front  were  mowing  them  down.  This 
was  too  much  for  them.  The  first  line  broke  and  ran; 
the  second  came  on,  were  served  in  the  same  way,  and 
also  broke  and  scattered;  yet  they  were  as  brave  as 
lions.  Their  dead  lay  close  up  to  our  line,  and  one  of 
their  colour-bearers  fell  over  one  of  our  Napoleon 
field-pieces.  Hundreds  got  behind  a  house  and  laid 
down  their  arms.  We  captured  ten  stands  of  colors. 
Thus  the  rebs  were  served  all  along  our  line,  and  on  the 
whole  it  was  one  of  the  severest  fights  of  the  war  and 
a  glorious  success  for  us.* 

*An  account  of  the  battle  given  in  the  Regimental  History 
of  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  New  York  says: 

"Noticing  a  lull  in  the  cannonading,  Captain  Armstrong 
looked  around  and  saw  the  Confederate  lines  marching  grandly 
down  the  slope  toward  our  men.  He  immediately  ordered 
the  entire  picket  reserves  and  all  whom  he  could  muster — 
about  seventy-five  all  told — to  fall  in  and  led  them  on  the 
'double  quick'  about  three  hundred  yards  down  the  Emmets- 
burg  road  to  get  at  the  enemy  in  flank.  Finding  a  rail  fence 
at  right  angle  to  their  advancing  line  some  sixty  or  seventy- 
yards  from  their  extreme  left,  he  posted  his  men  along  the  rail 
fence.  They  took  position  unflinchingly,  and  resting  their  rifles 
on  the  top  of  the  fence,  took  deliberate  aim  and  poured  a 
murderous  fire  into  the  rebel  flank  comprising  Pettigrew's  men. 
The  Confederate  leader  afterward  confessed  surprise  that  part 
of  the  Eighth  Ohio  had  been  given  the  credit  for  the  flank  fire 
which  contributed  efficiently  to  the  result.  But  distinct  record 
should  go  into  general  history  of  Captain  Armstrong's  brave 
and  skilful  action  at  that  important  point  of  the  battle. 
.  .  .  Of  the  five  officers  who  served  with  Captain  Arm- 
strong in  his  brave  action,  he  was  the  only  survivor." 


94  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"But  I  cannot  describe  the  battle-field — the  dead — 
the  wounded — the  piteous  groans  and  the  prayers  of 
agony  that  went  up  to  Heaven  all  night  and  day.  The 
usual  expression  is  'Oh,  Lord !' — it  can  be  heard  on 
every  side,  and  when  one  approaches  they  cry  for  water 
most  piteously.  Oh,  how  they  beg  to  be  carried  away 
to  a  doctor.  Their  hands  are  either  half  open  or  clutch- 
ing a  cartridge  or  gun  or  ramrod;  just  as  life  left  them 
death  keeps  them.  I  may  here  say  to  you  that  I  have 
made  what  inward  preparation  I  can  for  death,  i 
keep  a  little  volume  of  Psalms  with  me  and  strive  to 
act  the  soldier  of  Christ. 

"Don't  be  anxious  for  me.  The  God  above  does  all 
things  well.  There  are  more  battles  to  be  fought  and 
I  must  fight.  My  sensations  in  battle  are  not  strange. 
I  feel  simply  resolved  to  do  my  best,  to  lead  my  men, 
and  to  accept  my  fate  like  a  man." 


That  night  Lee's  army  stole  away  southward. 

The  battle  of  Gettysburg  marks  a  crisis  in  Arm- 
strong's military  life  and  in  the  development  of  his 
character.  Before  Gettysburg  he  had  already 
changed  from  an  untried  college  student  to  a  skilful 
disciplinarian  with  the  power  of  obtaining  obedience 
from  his  men  at  critical  times;  a  soldier  used  to 
hardship:  but  the  great  battle  revealed  to  him 
life  in  its  deeper  aspects.  He  faced  death  side  by 
side  with  his  men;  he  saw  many  dear  to  him  die; 
he  led  two  important  charges  where  a  high  degree 
of  courage  and  military  skill  were  demanded,  and 
he  saw  the  greatest  soldiers  of  his  time  maneuver 
their  forces  on  a  crucial  field.  This  battle  was  the 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  95 

supreme  test  of  those  qualities  of  determination 
and  judgment,  of  the  power  to  conceive  and  execute 
effective  action  and  the  mastery  of  self  in  personal 
danger,  which  had  been  born  in  him  and  which 
much  of  his  life  had  tended  to  develop.  He  had 
learned  his  first  lesson  in  the  school  of  responsibility. 


CHAPTER  IV 
LIFE  IN  THE  ARMY — CONTINUED 

*  "LOUDOUN  VALLEY,  Virginia, 
"Nine  miles  from  Harper's  Ferry. 

"I  have  been  three  weeks  at  a  time  without  chang- 
ing or  taking  off  my  clothes — sleeping  just  as  I  marched, 
and  being  so  tired  with  long  marches  that  when  I  had 
fixed  my  little  shanty  and  got  my  supper  I  was  glad 
enough  to  lie  down  and  sleep  in  my  clothes,  with  noth- 
ing over  me  and  my  boots  or  a  canteen  for  a  pillow. 
Many  a  time  I  have  made  a  good  meal  off  raw  salt  pork 
and  'hard  tack'  (army  crackers);  sometimes  off  less; 
generally,  however,  we  have  coffee  three  times  a  day. 
.  .  .  We  are  now  in  a  lovely,  enchanting  val- 
ley. It  is  a  glorious  day  and  the  Sabbath  day,  too. 
The  only  quiet  Sabbath  for  a  month.  There  are  mil- 
lions of  large,  rich  blackberries  on  the  hillside,  and 
the  soldiers  have  bushels  of  them  to  eat.  I  stewed 
some  for  myself  in  a  tin  cup — the  first  stew  I  ever  made, 
and  it  was  good.  .  .  . 

"  We  don't  know  where  Lee  is  now. 

"  I  like  this  life  much,  its  ups  and  downs,  its  lights 
and  shadows,  its  storms  and  sunshines,  its  weariness 
and  rest.  (Just  stopped  to  eat  a  quart  of  blackberries.) 
As  I  resume  my  pencil,  orders  come  to  be  ready  to 
march  in  an  hour;  so  our  lovely  encampment  will  soon 
be  desolate." 

*  Written  about  July  20,  1862. 

96 


SAMUEL   CHAPMAN   ARMSTRONG  AS  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL  OF 
THE  NINTH    UNITED    STATES   COLORED    TROOPS 


Life  m  the  Army*    J862-J865  97 

[Written  a  few  days  later.]  ' '  We  moved  along  down 
the  valley  about  five  miles  and  have  bivouacked  on  a 
beautiful  slope  covered  with  grass.  Our  little  tent  is 
of  course  over  us,  and  I  resume  my  writing,  having  eaten 
another  quart  of  rich  blackberries  mashed  up  with 
sugar  and  water  in  my  cup.  The  face  of  the  coun- 
try is  covered  with  little  shelter  tents,  and  soldiers  are 
as  thick  as  bees  as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach.  This  being 
in  a  large  army  is  a  singular  thing.  It  makes  one  feel 
most  insignificant." 

THE  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  not  ostensibly 
on  a  berrying  picnic,  but  chasing  the  swift  Lee, 
who  easily  evaded  its  leisurely  pursuit  and  was 
soon  out  of  danger. 

On  July  27th,  Armstrong,  now  promoted  to  the 
rank  of  major,  left  the  field  for  the  North,  whither 
he  was  called  on  recruiting  service.  He  was 
obliged  to  stay  near  New  York  on  this  nondescript 
duty,  except  for  a  trip  to  Alexandria,  Virginia,  on 
a  steamship  in  command  of  1,400  men — ''deserters, 
conscripts,  stragglers,  and  soldiers. "  But  when 
the  end  of  October  came  and  with  it  the  approach 
of  winter,  the  time  for  every  one  to  be  at  work,  he 
felt  that  "the  army  is  the  place  for  a  soldier,"  and 
applied  for  permission  to  rejoin  his  regiment  in 
Virginia. 

The  change  had  been  pleasant,  but  he  had 
felt  dissatisfied  with  his  position  and  prospects. 
Several  prominent  citizens  of  New  York  had 
tried  to  raise  in  that  State  a  colored  regiment  of 


98  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

which  he  was  to  be  colonel.    At  about  this  time  he 
wrote  to  Archibald  Hopkins: 

"Here's  to  the  heathen!  Rather,  here's  to  the 
Negro !  I  say  Negro  or  anything  to  get  out  of  this. 
There's  the  far  West,  and  here  am  I,  a  vagabond,  a 
loafer.  There  are  loose,  lazy  contrabands  and  why  not 
'  go  in'  ?  My  internal  machinery  can  brook  this  dread- 
ful titter-fritteration  of  my  time  no  longer.  Now  I'm 
not  disappointed  in  love — there's  no  one  to  love !  I 
go  in  for  some  variation  in  the  old  song  of  do-nothing. 
Time  won't  do  it;  the  War  Department  won't  do  it, 
and  if  my  dander  rises  sufficiently  I'll  do  it — I  will. 
Yes,  let  us  strike  out — strike  out  old  forms  of  life  and 
thought,  and  ring  in  something  new  for  a  change." 

Owing  to  the  opposition  of  the  State  authorities 
to  the  enlistment  of  colored  men,  the  plan  was 
never  carried  into  execution  and  he  returned  to 
Virginia  still  a  major,  yet  the  idea  of  commanding 
black  troops  had  taken  firm  hold  of  his  mind,  and 
the  place  of  a  major,  a  "fifth  wheel  where  there  is  a 
colonel,"  as  he  wrote  later,  galled  him.  Some  time 
in  November  he  took  examinations  which  entitled 
him  to  a  colonelcy  of  colored  troops.  These  exam- 
inations were  made  especially  severe  on  account  of 
the  fact  that  only  men  of  character,  determination 
and  education  were  wanted  for  the  command  of 
colored  troops,  and  out  of  eighty-five  who  were 
examined  at  the  same  time  but  four  passed.  A 
lieutenant-colonelcy  was  soon  offered  him,  which 
he  accepted  the  more  readily  because,  owing  to  the 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  99 

prolonged  absence  of  the  colonel,  the  active  organiza- 
tion and  command  of  the  regiment  would  fall  at 
once  into  his  hands. 

At  this  time  the  question  whether  Negroes  were 
enduring  and  patient  under  fire  was  considered  an 
open  one  or  answered  vigorously  in  the  negative. 
The  War  Department  had  been  employing  them 
since  July,  1862,  and  they  had  shown  capacity  for 
daring,  if  not  heroism,  at  Fort  Wagner  and  Milliken's 
Bend ;  still  an  officer  in  undertaking  their  command 
risked  to  a  considerable  extent  his  military  repu- 
tation. Moreover,  the  Confederate  Congress  had 
declared  that  commissioned  officers  commanding 
' '  Negroes  or  mulattoes  in  armies  against  the  Con- 
federates should  be  put  to  death  for  inciting  servile 
insurrection  or  otherwise  dealt  with  at  the  discretion 
of  the  court' ' ;  or,  in  the  popular  wording  of  the 
decree,  that  "no  quarter  would  be  given  to  'nigger' 
officers."  But  this  fact  did  not  disturb  the  morale 
of  the  troops;  on  the  contrary,  as  Armstrong  wrote 
later: 

"Nothing  was  of  more  help  to  the  newly  established 
and  not  at  all  fashionable  Negro  service.  In  our  weekly 
officers'  meetings  to  study  tactics  and  discuss  the  situ- 
ation, fully  anticipating  such  treatment,  we  agreed 
that  our  men  must  go  into  battle  in  good  shape  and 
must  be  made  the  most  of.  We  told  them  what  to 
expect." 

Just  before  leaving  his  old  regiment  for  the  new 
command  he  wrote: 


zoo  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

"CAMP  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  TWENTY-FIFTH  NEW  YORK 
"  VOLUNTEER  INFANTRY, 

"Near  Brandy  Station,  Virginia. 

"Dear  Mother:  This  is  the  last  evening  I  shall 
ever  perhaps  spend  with  my  noble  old  regiment,  the 
One  Hundred  and  Twenty-fifth  New  York.  To- 
morrow I  leave  my  brave  old  companions,  my  gal- 
lant Company  D,  my  comrades  for  many  months 
in  pleasure  and  sorrow,  in  comfort  and  in  suffer- 
ing. It  is  hard  to  do  this;  very  hard.  As  I  write, 
a  band  is  serenading  the  General,  playing  'When 
this  cruel  war  is  over.'  It  is  harder  than  leaving  my 
classmates  when  I  left  college.  You  cannot  imagine 
the  beauty  and  the  pleasure  of  the  relation  in  which 
I  now  stand  to  this  regiment. 

"I  write  this  in  confidence.  At  first  for  months 
they  hated  me;  my  company  hated  me  as  they  would 
Satan  himself.  It  was  because  I  was  strict  and  paid 
no  respect  to  their  un-military  and  unmanly  humors. 
But  finally,  especially  after  Gettysburg,  all  this  changed. 
Men  saw  me  go  where  death  seemed  almost  certain 
and  call  upon  them  to  follow  and  they  did  so.  Men 
saw  that  I  never  flinched  or  failed  in  the  longest  march, 
that  nothing  swerved  me  from  the  line  of  my  duty.  And 
now  I  have  the  utmost  confidence  of  almost  every  man 
in  the  regiment.  I  think  many  of  my  old  company 
love  me.  I  know  it  and  I  love  them.  They  have  said 
they  would  'go  to  the  devil'  for  me,  and  I  know  that 
they  would  never  desert  me  in  the  hour  of  trial,  no 
matter  what  dangers  and  terrors  might  be  before  them. 
And  yet  they  are  young,  many  of  them  but  boys.  Yes, 
between  them  and  me  there  is  almost  a  romantic  at- 
tachment. 

"  I  go  into  untried  scenes,  but  with  no  fear  to  meet 
the  future. 


Life  in  the  Army*    \%&2-i$f)&  ii 

' '  The  Negro  troops  have  not  yet  entirely  proved  them- 
selves good  soldiers ;  but  if  the  Negroes  can  be  made  to 
fight  well,  then  is  the  question  of  their  freedom  settled. 

' '  I  tell  you  the  present  is  the  grandest  time  the  world 
ever  saw.  The  African  race  is  before  the  world,  unex- 
pectedly to  all,  and  all  mankind  are  looking  to  see 
whether  the  African  will  show  himself  equal  to  the 
opportunity  before  him. 

"And  what  is  this  opportunity?  It  is  to  demon- 
strate to  the  world  that  he  is  a  man,  that  he  has  the 
highest  elements  of  manhood,  courage,  perseverance, 
and  honor;  that  he  is  not  only  worthy  of  freedom,  but 
able  to  win  it,  so  he  has  a  chance.  All  men  must  respect 
heroism  and  military  prowess — those  possessing  such 
qualities  must  and  will  be  made  free.  They  are  too 
noble  for  slaves,  and  the  nations  will  despise  a  country 
that  attempts  to  enslave  men  who  have  saved  her  own 
constitution  and  independence. 

"The  star  of  Africa  is  rising,  her  millions  now  for 
the  first  time  catching  the  glimpse  of  a  glorious  dawn. 
Auroral  gleams  are  lighting  up  the  horizon  of  their 
future,  and  their  future  in  my  opinion  rests  largely 
upon  the  success  of  the  Negro  troops  in  this  war.  Their 
honor  and  their  glory  will  insure  the  freedom  of  their 
race ;  their  dishonor  will  result  in  the  disbanding  of  the 
troops  and  in  universal  contempt  for  the  race.  I 
gladly  lend  myself  to  the  experiment — to  this  issue. 
It  will  yet  be  a  grand  thing  to  have  been  identified 
with  this  Negro  movement." 

About  the  middle  of  December  came  the  order  to 
join  his  new  command,  and  Armstrong  left  at  once 
for  Benedict,  Maryland,  where  he  took  charge  of 
six  companies  of  the  Ninth  Regiment  United  States 


"Samtjel  Chapman  Armstrong 


Colored  Troops,  then  organizing  with  three  other 
colored  regiments  in  that  place,  the  whole  com- 
manded by  General  William  Birney. 

"BENEDICT,  Maryland, 
"  December  17,  1863. 

"This  is  a  horrible  hole,  a  rendezvous  for  blockade 
runners,  deserters,  and  such  trash;  good  for  nothing 
but  oysters,  without  another  redeeming  trait. 

"The  place  is  unhealthy,  and  many  are  dying  of 
measles  and  smallpox,  etc.,  but  I  was  never  more  con- 
tented. I  have  brought  the  regiment  up  so  that  we 
have  completely  whipped  the  Seventh  Colored,  which 
was  raised  several  weeks  before  this.  Our  camp  is  really 
beautiful,  dressed  in  evergreens,  with  handsome  stock- 
ades and  well-graded  streets,  and  nobody  says  'boo' 
to  us.  Our  tails  are  up — the  Seventh  keep  theirs  down 
and  'acknowledge  the  corn.'  I  have  a  fine,  an  excellent 
set  of  officers;  they  are  full  of  pride  and  spirit,  bound 
to  beat  anything  around.  ...  I  assure  you  it  is 
gratifying,  because  the  task  has  been  laborious,  diffi- 
cult, and  subjected  me  to  a  good  many  severe  tests. 
I  have  got  along  better  than  I  expected  to. 

"One  of  my  captains  was  a  lieutenant-colonel  and  is 
smart  as  steel. 

"I  tell  you  this  service  will  get  to  be  the  thing.  All 
are  satisfied.  The  men  are  willing,  learn  very  quickly, 
and  the  regiment  runs  twice  as  smoothly  as  a  volunteer 
regiment. 

"To-day  is  Sunday,  but  of  course  no  preaching,  no 
Sunday-school,  but  a  day  of  leisure.  To-day  it  has 
rained  all  day.  After  dinner  two  of  my  soldiers  were 
buried.  I  saw  the  procession  start,  ordered  my  horse 
and  followed  it.  It  was  a  strange  thing  to  see  a  man 
who  had  been  born  a  slave  and  lived  the  life  of  a  slave 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  103 

under  the  lash  like  a  dog  carried  to  the  grave  with  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  shrouding  his  coffin,  in  a  procession 
headed  by  a  brass  band  playing  a  funeral  dirge,  escorted 
by  a  body  of  soldiers  with  arms  reversed,  and  followed 
by  a  procession  of  comrades  in  the  uniform  of  United 
States  soldiers,  under  charge  of  three  commissioned 
officers  of  the  army.  The  procession  reached  the  grave ; 
the  same  funeral  service  that  is  read  at  the  funeral  of 
sovereigns  was  read  at  the  grave  of  the  slave-soldier, 
and  three  volleys  of  musketry  were  fired  over  his 
coffin. 

"It  was  a  most  impressive  comment  upon  the  gran- 
deur of  the  struggle  in  which  we  are  engaged.  We  are 
fighting  for  humanity  and  freedom,  the  South  for 
barbarism  and  slavery.  Remember,  that  was  the 
burial  of  a  private  soldier,  the  humblest  man  in  the 
army,  and  the  funeral  of  a  Negro  who,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  freedom  we  gave  him,  might  have  been  beaten 
to  death  and  tumbled  into  a  pit. 

"I  have  been  visiting  the  hospitals  to-day,  where 
about  100  of  my  regiment  are  quartered.  They  seemed 
glad  to  see  me. 

"But  I  must  tell  you  about  Christmas.  These 
Negroes  are  used  to  having  grand  times  on  that  day, 
and  so  I  determined  to  give  them  some  sport." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Armstrong  grasped 
thus  early  the  importance  of  providing  for  and 
guiding  the  social  instinct  of  the  Negro.  The 
competitive  trials  referred  to  in  the  next  extract 
from  the  journal  developed  regimental  pride,  in 
which  the  Negroes  were  often  lacking. 

"We  officers  subscribed  money  freely  and  bought 
an  ox,  which  we  roasted  whole  for  the  regiment. 


104  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"The  day's  sports  opened  with  trials  of  strength  at 
rope-pulling,  the  victor  always  receiving  a  prize  and 
always  being  greeted  with  vociferous  cheers.  After 
this  they  ran  races  for  prizes,  and  there  was  some 
wonderful  running.  Then  they  had  a  greased  pole  to 
climb,  with  $5  on  top  of  it,  which  afforded  rare 
sport.  Next  was  a  chase  after  greased  pigs  which  had 
all  their  hair  cut  off  and  had  been  well  oiled.  The 
captor  was  to  have  the  pig  provided  he  caught  him 
by  the  tail.  A  lot  of  bags  had  been  furnished  for  a 
sack-race,  which  passed  off  with  great  success. 

"After  dinner  the  two  regiments  were  drawn  up  facing 
each  other,  about  ten  rods  apart,  and  the  champion 
runners  contested  twice  for  a  $5  prize.  Also  there 
was  a  blindfold  race.  My  regiment  won  all  the 
prizes  and  had  during  the  day  three  times  as  much 
sport  as  any  other.  The  men  said  they  never  had 
such  a  Christmas  before.  The  roast  ox  was  eaten  for 
supper.  During  the  afternoon  I  had  most  of  my 
officers  get  horses.  Some  got  horses,  some  got  colts, 
some  got  mules,  and  I  drilled  the  squad  on  the  parade 
ground,  also  ran  races  and  cut  up  generally:  had  a  high 
old  time. 

"I  feel  more  in  my  element  since  being  a  mounted 
officer.  I  have  got  along  finely  with  my  regiment. 
Have  the  finest  camp  in  the  brigade,  and  the  Ninth  is 
acknowledged  to  lead  the  rest.  The  regiment  next  to 
us  had  six  weeks  the  start  of  us,  and  to-day  they  are 
not  over  one  week  ahead  of  us  in  drill  and  far  behind 
us  in  everything  else.  We  expect  to  beat  everything 
around  in  everything,  and  we  are  in  a  fair  way  to 
do  it." 

He  also  stimulated  self-respect  among  his  men  by 
insisting  on  a  high  standard  of  neatness  in  their 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  105 

camp  and  individual  quarters,  himself  taking  the 
lead  with  enthusiasm.  He  never  put  up  a  tent, 
whether  for  the  stay  of  a  week  or  of  six  months, 
without  decorating  it  with  such  simple  garlands  as 
the  woods  afforded,  setting  up  his  books  and 
pictures  in  a  homelike  way,  and  contriving  pleasant 
arbors  and  approaches  to  shelter  it.  In  the  same 
spirit  the  tents  of  the  regiment  were  pitched  in  even 
lines;  trees  planted  to  shade  the  company  streets 
and  the  streets  themselves  neatly  sanded.  Said 
he,  "  Though  I  am  a  poor  housekeeper,  I  am  a  good 
camp-maker." 

"CAMP  STANTON,  Benedict,  Maryland, 

"Februarys,  1864. 

"I  am  writing  in  my  own  tent.  I  have  a  man  whose 
sole  business  is  to  keep  my  tent  in  good  order  and  my 
fire  a-going,  and  so  zealous  is  he  that  on  warm  days 
like  this  he  almost  roasts  me  by  the  great  blaze  that 
he  makes  up.  Cedar  is  now  burning  and  the  room  is 
filled  with  a  fragrance  that  exhales  from  the  wood. 
It  is  almost  equal  to  the  perfume  of  sandal  wood.  My 
floor  is  swept  eight  or  ten  times  a  day,  and  although  I 
do  my  best  to  scatter  things  around  I  don't  succeed 
very  well.  The  '  Dominie '  has  a  great  taste  for  natural 
history  and  botany.  He  has  decorated  the  room  with 
boughs  of  holly  and  a  cunning  bird's  nest  nestles  among 
the  evergreen  leaves.  My  furniture  is  simple,  a  bunk, 
a  chair,  a  desk,  two  boxes,  one  for  a  seat  and  one  for  a 
wash-stand,  comprising  it  all.  I  have  several  shelves 
laden  with  books  and  papers.  All  around  the  room 
are  suspended  on  nails  various  articles;  my  sword, 
sash,  rubber  overcoat,  woollen  (blue)  overcoat,  haver- 


io6  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

sack,  clothes,  and  the  Dominie's  things.  Everything 
is  neat,  tidy,  comfortable  and  homelike.  I  have  plenty 
of  books,  as  Tennyson,  Virgil,  Pope's  '  Iliad,'  Mitchell's 
'  Lectures  on  Astronomy,'  'Kavanagh'  and  'Outre  Mer,' 
Professor  Wilson's  'Noctes  Ambrosianae'  (which  are 
magnificent),  etc.;  also  many  military  works,  as 
Jomini,  Schults,  etc. 

"I  never  enjoyed  myself  better  than  here.  Have 
plenty  of  visitors.  Many  of  the  officers  sing.  Dom- 
inie's tenor  is  excellent  and  we  frequently  serenade  the 
camps.  Our  collection  of  songs  is  rare,  and  we  some- 
times get  a  lot  of  officers  together  and  prolong  our 
hilarity  over  oysters,  etc.,  till  late.  There  are  plenty 
of  splendid  fellows  here  among  the  officers.  The 
colored  troops  have  much  better  officers  than  the 
State  volunteer  regiments." 

Writing  twenty  years  later  of  these  days  he  says : 

"How  we  studied  and  drilled!  General  Birney 
driving  us  hard.  He  proved  himself  a  great  organizer 
of  camps.  His  service  in  Maryland  in  raising  colored 
troops  was  a  bold,  successful  and  grand  work.  Secre- 
tary Stanton  was  back  of  him.  President  Lincoln 
did  not  seem  to  feel  quite  so  sure  of  a  step  not  strictly 
legal. 

"Many  a  master  who  came  to  get  a  receipt  for  his 
human  property  was  halted  by  a  sentinel  who  two 
days  before  had  been  his  slave. 

' '  The  old  flag  in  our  camp  was  like  the  brazen  serpent 
raised  in  the  wilderness.  Once  in  sight  of  it,  across  the 
sentry's  beat  was  instant  freedom.  How  the  men 
sang  at  night  around  their  camp  fires  !  Much  of  it  was 
rude,  uncouth  music,  and  the  officers  complained  of  it. 
One  night  I  was  drawn  out  of  my  tent  by  a  wonder- 


Life  in  the  Arniy.    J862-J865  107 

ful  chorus.  The  men  had  struck  up  an  old  church 
hymn — 'They  look  like  men  of  war;  all  arm'd  and 
dress' d  in  uniform,  they  look  like  men  of  war.'*  It 

*THE  ENLISTED  SOLDIERS 
Sung  by  the  men  of  the   United  States  colored  volunteers. 

1.  Hark!  listen  to  the  trumpeters, 
They  call  for  volunteers; 

On  Zion's  bright  and  flow'ry  mount, 
Behold  the  officers. 

REFRAIN. — They  look  like  men,  they  look  like  men, 
They  look  like  men  of  war; 
All  arm'd  and  dress'd  in  uniform, 
They  look  like  men  of  war. 

2.  Their  horses  white,  their  armor  bright, 
With  courage  bold  they  stand, 
Enlisting  soldiers  for  their  King 

To  march  to  Canaan's  land. — REFRAIN. 

3.  It  sets  my  heart  quite  in  a  flame 
A  soldier  thus  to  be; 

I  will  enlist,  gird  on  my  arms, 
And  fight  for  liberty. — REFRAIN. 

4.  We  want  no  cowards  in  our  band 
That  will  their  colors  fly; 

We  call  for  valiant-hearted  men 
Who're  not  afraid  to  die. — REFRAIN. 

5.  To  see  our  armies  on  parade, 
How  martial  they  appear ! 

All  armed  and  dressed  in  uniform, 
They  look  like  men  of  war. — REFRAIN. 

6.  They  follow  their  great  General, 
The  great  Eternal  Lamb, 

His  garment  stained  in  His  own  blood, 
King  Jesus  is  His  name. — REFRAIN. 

7.  The  trumpets  sound,  the  armies  shout, 
They  drive  the  host  of  hell; 

How  dreadful  is  our  God  to  adore, 
The  great  Immanuel ! — REFRAIN. 


io8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

fitted  the  scene,  and  their  hearty  singing  of  it  sent 
through  me  a  sensation  I  shall  never  forget.  It  became 
their  battle-hymn.  These  were  the  dramatics  of  war; 
the  dynamics  came  later. 

"I  did  not  then  realize  how  wise  it  was  to  put  the 
black  man  into  uniform  and  use  him  as  a  United  States 
soldier,  though  the  pay  was  but  $7  a  month;  white 
soldiers  received  $13  a  month.*  Treating  him  as 
a  soldier  made  him  one.  The  Negro  rallied  grandly  to 
the  duty  required.  There  was,  as  there  has  been  ever 
since,  more  in  him  than  we  expected  to  find  and  more 
than  his  old  masters  ever  dreamed  of. 

"Both  armies  despised  our  black  troops  in  those 
days;  but  before  the  war  was  over  they  were  drilling 
Negro  troops  in  the  Capitol  Square  at  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, to  help  save  the  Confederacy. 

"I  was  called  to  command  a  party  to  hunt  a  South- 
erner who  had  shot,  under  excitement,  one  of  our 
recruiting  officers,  and  had  the  unpleasant  duty  of 
searching  the  house  of  a  charming  family  who  had  most 
kindly  entertained  me  the  week  before. 

"My  soldiers  wished  to  do  their  whole  duty.  As  I 
galloped  one  day  by  the  pioneer  corps,  who  were  re- 
turning from  woodchopping,  they  solemnly  presented 
axes. 

"The  sentries  were  loyal,  but  not  always  clear-headed. 
A  party  of  officers  lugging  slyly  into  camp  a  keg  of 
beer  were  halted  with  'Who  comes  here?'  'Comrades, 
bearing  the  body  of  a  deceased  brother,'  was  the  reply. 
The  solemn-sounding  words  and  the  dignity  of  death 
overcame  the  awe-struck  guard,  who  let  them  in  with- 
out the  countersign. 

"Mess  life  was  usually  hilarious.     The  '  Anvil  Chorus  ' 

*After  May  22,  1864,  the  Negro  troops  received  pay  equal  to 
the  whites. 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  109 

was  produced  with  great  effect  with  tin  cups,  knives 
and  tin  plates. 

"With  all  the  care  in  selecting  men,  the  mortality 
was  great.  The  men  lived  and  were  clothed  differently 
than  usual.  Pneumonia  carried  off  many.  The  new 
quarters,  built  of  logs  and  mud,  were  damp.  Even  on 
their  own  ground,  with  no  climatic  change  whatever, 
the  death  rate  was  high.  One  reason  was,  no  doubt, 
their  superstitious  fears  excited  by  sickness.  The 
doctors  afterward  said  that  the  black  soldiers  bore 
surgical  operations  with  wonderful  fortitude,  but  in 
ordinary  sickness  their  pluck  failed  and  they  gave  up." 

At  Benedict  was  a  school  for  Negro  soldiers, 
probably  an  excellent  example  of  the  military 
schools  that  were  springing  up  here  and  there  in  the 
South  wherever  colored  soldiers  were  stationed, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  to  Armstrong  was 
given  the  presidency  of  the  "college."  The  jour- 
nal resumes: 

"There  are  five  ladies  from  Boston  at  this  place 
teaching,  sent  at  General  Birney's  request  by  a  Boston 
society.  I  am  in  charge  of  the  college,  which  is  an  old 
secesh  tobacco  barn,  cleaned  out,  ventilated,  and  illu- 
minated by  a  few  tallow  candles ;  well  seated  and  holds 
500  men.  The  school  is  held  two  hours  by  day  and  two 
hours  in  the  evening,  and  it  is  a  sight  to  see  the  soldiers 
groping  after  the  very  least  knowledge.  They  are 
principally  learning  their  letters;  a  pitiable  sight,  and 
thank  slavery  for  it.  In  book  knowledge,  in  drill  and 
all  military  duty  they  make  remarkable  progress. 
At  such  a  time  one  realizes  the  curse  that  has  been  upon 
them.  Slavery  makes  brutes  of  men,  and  then  refuses 


Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

to  give  them  freedom  because  they  are  so  brutish.  I 
think  those  men  have  a  good  reason  for  fighting  and 
that  they  will  fight." 

"STEAM  PROPELLER  AND  TRANSPORT  SHIP  'UNITED 

STATES,' 

"March  4,  1864,  7:30  o'clock  p.  M. 
"Chesapeake  Bay,  near  mouth  of  Patuxent  River. 

"Dear  Mother:  Most  snugly  and  cozily  am  I  ensconced 
in  an  arm  chair  in  the  ladies'  saloon  of  this  new  and 
elegant  steamer  of  1,278  tons. 

"We  have  on  board  1,300  colored  soldiers — one  and 
one-third  regiments — bound  for  Hilton  Head,  South 
Carolina.  The  evening  is  lovely  as  lovely  can  be,  but 
rather  chilly.  So,  after  going  all  over  the  ship  and  see- 
ing that  the  men  were  as  comfortable  as  could  be,  and 
drinking  in  delight  for  awhile  as  I  viewed  from  the  top  of 
the  bulwarks  the  sky,  the  stars,  the  gorgeous  sunset 
clouds  and  the  glassy  sea,  I  have  taken  my  portfolio  from 
my  valise  and  in  this  quiet  place  turned  my  thoughts 
homeward.  At  my  feet  lies  our  noble  St.  Bernard  and 
Newfoundland  dog  Charlie — the  noblest  brute  I  ever 
saw;  at  my  elbow  sits  '  Dominie '  H—  -  (the  chaplain).  . 
.  .  Every  one  is  gay  to-night.  This  is  so  far  a  pleasure 
sail.  Some  are  playing  cards,  some  are  singing,  some 
reading,  all  are  merry.  But  who  will  come  back  of  all 
these  whose  hearts  now  throb  with  life,  whose  eyes  are 
lit  with  the  hopes  within  them?  Never  mind;  our 
term  may  indeed  be  a  little  shorter  for  this  war,  but  at 
the  longest  how  brief  it  is !  And  so  I  don't  bother 
myself  much  about  possibilities,  but  strive  rather  to 
obey  the  calls  of  the  present  and  trust  in  God. 

"  If  I  fall,  be  assured  that  I  never  was  better  prepared 
than  now  for  the  worst.  Since  entering  this  branch  of 
the  service  I  have  felt  the  high  duty  and  sacredness  of 


Life  in  the  Army*    JS62-J865  in 

my  position.  It  is  no  sacrifice  for  me  to  be  here;  it  is 
rather  a  glorious  opportunity,  and  I  would  be  nowhere 
else  than  here  if  I  could,  and  nothing  else  than  an  officer 
of  colored  troops  if  I  could.  This  content,  this  almost 
supreme  satisfaction  has  shed  a  rich  glow  upon  my 
life.  I  have  felt,  and  do  feel,  like  a  very  apostle  of 
human  liberty  striking  the  deadliest  possible  blow  at 
oppression ;  and  what  duty  is  more  glorious  than  that  ? 
What  nobler  work  has  been  given  to  man  since  the 
Reformation  ?  I  feel  more  than  ever  in  sympathy 
with  the  good,  the  holy,  the  just  and  the  true,  and  the 
blessedness  of  religion  has  descended  upon  me  with  a 
sweetness,  a  beauty,  a  richness  and  a  power  that  it 
never  had  before.  Besides  all  this,  I  have  a  certain 
consciousness  that  I  am  no  disgrace  to  this  sacred 
service,  which  I  think  is  well  based.  I  certainly  could 
ask  no  pleasanter  relations  than  I  now  hold  to  my 
fellow  officers." 

The  expedition  to  Hilton  Head  was  made  for  the 
purpose  of  reenforcing  Port  Royal,  a  post  which, 
though  surrounded  by  rebels,  had  been  in  the  hands 
of  the  Federals  since  November,  1861.  There  was 
little  actual  fighting.  The  picket  line,  twenty  miles 
in  length,  was  in  no  place  over  a  mile  from  the 
enemy,  and  at  many  points  the  outposts  were  only 
separated  by  a  stream,  so  that  occasional  friction 
occurred. 

Here  Armstrong  stayed  four  weary  months, 
the  routine  of  camp  life  broken  only  by  occasional 
raids  in  the  enemy's  territory — casual  affairs  which 
gave  no  satisfaction  or  definite  results,  but  which 
served  to  increase  his  confidence  in  his  black  troops — 


ii2  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

and  by  the  social  pleasures  which  he  extracted 
from  almost  any  situation.  Early  in  August  he 
wrote  to  his  friend  Archibald  Hopkins,  who  was 
engaged  in  active  service: 

"For  myself  I  am  one  of  the  most  miserable  of  men. 
I  never  was  so  wretched.  No  disappointment  of  love, 
no  crushing  sorrow  could  so  prostrate  me  as  the  feeling 
that  I  am  idling  and  loafing  on  these  sands,  while  my 
old  comrades  and  others  are  struggling  so  nobly  in 
Virginia.  ...  I  would  rather  grind  a  hand-organ 
for  the  edification  of  the  mule-teams  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  than  review  a  dress  parade  of  a 
regiment  down  here. 

"Thus  it  is  always.  Some  men's  hopes  must  be 
realized  and  the  hopes  of  some  must  fail.  God  only 
is  great,  and  any  service  of  His  is  good  enough  for  mor- 
tals. The  fact  is,  I  am  mortally  jealous !  " 

About  August  5th  came  the  welcome  order  to 
return  to  Virginia.  There  the  main  action  centered 
about  Petersburg,  which  had  been  in  a  state  of 
siege  since  June,  and  toward  this  city  the  Ninth 
Regiment,  still  part  of  Birney's  corps,  now  under 
General  Butler  in  the  Army  of  the  James,  was 
directed  to  move.  Their  way  inland  was  a  hard- 
fought  one.  Severe  brushes  occurred  at  various 
Confederate  breastworks  and  other  fortifications. 
Armstrong  was  overjoyed  to  be  again  where  some- 
thing was  going  on.  "We  are  bound  to  glory 
with  a  fair  wind,"  he  wrote;  "nothing  but  working 
and  fighting  ahead." 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  113 

The  following  incident  of  the  approach  to  Peters- 
burg, which  occurred  when  he  was  ordered  to  attack 
a  certain  formidable  breastwork,  shows  the  con- 
trol of  his  troops  which  Armstrong  had  acquired 
through  his  constant  watchfulness  for  their  comfort : 

"Next  day  there  was  a  bloody  assault  on  the  enemy's 
works,  which  were  captured,  and  my  regiment  was 
sent  to  occupy  a  portion  of  them.  I  went  in  under  a 
heavy  front  and  flank  fire,  got  into  position  in  the  rifle- 
pits,  and  for  fifteen  minutes  or  more  we  had  it  hot  and 
heavy.  My  men  fell  fast,  but  never  flinched.  They 
fired  coolly  and  won  great  praise.  I  walked  along  the 
line  three  or  four  times,  and  as  the  work  was  hardly 
breast  high  was  much  exposed.  I  passed  many  killed 
along  my  path,  and  the  wounded  went  in  numbers  to 
the  rear.  Finally,  however,  the  rebs  flanked  us  on 
the  left  and  forced  us  out.  Standing  there  in  line  we 
were  harassed  by  an  unseen  foe  hidden  in  the  bushes. 
It  was  impossible  to  hold  the  position,  and  I  ordered 
them  to  walk,  and  they  did  so  the  whole  distance,  shot 
at  by  the  unseen  enemy  as  they  went,  and  having  to 
climb  over  fallen  trees  and  go  through  rough  ground. 
They  got  back  panting  with  fatigue  and  lay  down 
exhausted.  But  orders  came,  and  off  we  went  to  retake 
the  rifle-pits. 

"My  worn-out  regiment  and  half  another  were 
ordered  to  do  what  a  whole  white  regiment  had  done 
before,  and  to  take  works  which  twice  their  number  had 
just  failed  to  hold  against  the  enemy.  We  were  to 
attack  five  times  our  number,  and  that,  too,  behind 
strong  works  protected  by  timber  felled  in  front. 

"It  was  madness  in  our  general;  it  was  death  to  us, 
sure  death — total  annihilation.  The  order  was  given, 


ii4  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

'  Forward !'  Off  we  went  cheerfully  to  our  doom.  I 
never  felt  more  calm  and  ready  for  anything,  but  just 
as  we  had  advanced  a  few  yards  another  general  came 
up  and  ordered  us  to  halt  and  not  attack.  He  saved 
us.  He  was  General  Terry." 

By  the  end  of  August  the  Ninth  Regiment  was 
encamped  before  Petersburg.  The  army,  though 
commanded  by  Grant,  was  in  a  demoralized  con- 
dition, owing  in  part  to  the  recent  defeat  at  Cold 
Harbor  and  in  part  to  the  low  character  of  our 
bounty-paid  troops,  who  were  constantly  arriving 
as  reinforcements.  The  insubordination  of  the 
white  troops  probably  did  not  extend  to  the  colored, 
who  had  their  separate  quarters  and  messes,  and 
whose  officers  were,  as  has  been  said,  men  of  unusual 
courage  and  character. 

Armstrong  was  marked  even  among  his  fellow 
officers  for  his  daring.  While  encamped  before 
Petersburg  he  selected  for  his  men  a  sheltered 
ravine  out  of  reach  of  the  enemy's  guns,  while  he 
himself  pitched  his  tent  on  an  elevation  close  by, 
across  which  the  enemy's  cannon-balls  were  con- 
tinually ricochetting,  placing  him  in  hourly  peril 
by  day  and  night.  He  felt  that  the  morale  of 
the  colored  troops  could  only  be  maintained  by  a 
commander  who  showed  himself  superior  to  fear. 
As  illustrating  this  habitual  self-command  a  brother 
officer  relates  the  following  incident:  Armstrong 
came  into  his  tent  one  day,  having  ridden  from  his 
own  quarters  during  a  severe  shelling,  and  remarked 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  115 

that  a  shell  had  burst  directly  in  front  of  him.  "  I 
instinctively  reined  in  my  horse!"  he  said,  as  if 
apologizing  for  an  act  of  cowardice. 

"Although  a  martinet  in  discipline  where  military 
principle  was  concerned,"  says  the  same  officer, 
"  his  soldiers  felt  toward  him  a  regard  that  amounted 
almost  to  deification." 

The  siege  at  Petersburg  continued  through 
summer  and  fall,  with  but  few  sorties  on  either  side, 
the  pickets  alone  keeping  up  a  desultory  warfare. 

"!N  THE  TRENCHES  BEFORE  PETERSBURG, 
"August  30,  1864. 

"The  world  moves  on,  and  so  do  regiments.  There 
is  nothing  so  unsettled  as  a  soldier's  camp  or  life;  you 
never  know  here  what  to  expect.  One  fine  afternoon 
I  was  ordered  to  retake  a  portion  of  the  picket  line 
from  which  our  troops  had  fallen  back.  I  went  expect- 
ing a  fight.  Charged  the  lost  line  with  three  companies, 
but  the  enemy  did  not  wait  for  us  and  ran  without 
even  firing  a  piece. 

"We  had  a  beautiful  little  camp  over  the  Appomat- 
tox  near  Bermuda  Hundred,  at  Hatchett's.  I  have 
everything  as  regular  and  handsome  and  clean  as  pos- 
sible, and  my  camps  are  not  only  the  cleanest,  but  the 
handsomest  in  the  brigade.  I  always  work  quickly, 
and  give  clear,  positive  instructions  to  my  officers, 
and  they  obey  my  orders  with  utmost  fidelity  as  a 
general  thing.  Here  is  an  instance.  Yesterday  our 
sister  and  rival  regiment,  the  Seventh  United  States 
Colored  Troops,  and  my  own,  the  Ninth  United  States 
Colored  Troops,  were  ordered  to  establish  permanent 
camps  in  the  second  line  of  works.  I  went  to  work 


n6  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

and  in  four  hours  had  strong,  massive  bomb-proofs 
built.  The  other  regiment  had  only  burrowed  a  few 
holes  in  the  dirt,  and  when  last  night  we  were  heavily 
shelled,  my  men  were  as  safe  and  comfortable  as  they 
could  have  been  in  Kawaiahao  church,  while  the  other 
regiments  around  us  were  crawling  into  holes  and 
dodging  about,  well  scared. 

"The  fact  was,  I  sent  my  men  out  and  'gobbled  up* 
all  the  spades,  axes  and  logs  in  the  neighborhood. 
During  this  shelling  I  sat  in  my  tent,  where  I  am  now 
writing,  and  lifting  my  eyes  could  see  the  mortar  shells 
gliding  like  meteors  through  the  sky;  some  going  and 
some  coming.  Several  shells  burst  quite  near  us,  not 
over  100  yards  off.  On  such  occasions  I  seldom  seek 
shelter,  although  I  require  my  men  to  take  it.  The 
chances  of  an  individual  are  very  great,  and  besides 
there  is  nothing  very  dangerous  about  shells  unless 
they  begin  to  drop  close  by.  It  is  a  splendid  sight  to 
see  shelling  at  night,  to  watch  a  huge  13 -inch  mortar 
shell  shoot  far  up  into  the  heavens  and  then  seem  to 
glide  awhile  among  the  stars,  a  ball  of  light,  then 
slowly  descend  in  terror  and  vengeance  into  the  heart 
of  a  great  city  whose  spires  are  in  sight  from  here.  .  .  ." 

"I  forgot  in  my  last  to  tell  you  about  the  flag  of 
truce  in  our  campaign  at  Deep  Bottom,  over  the  James 
River.  It  was  to  bury  our  dead,  and  being  in  command 
of  our  picket  line  that  day,  I  was  present.  We  met 
the  rebels  half-way  between  the  lines.  I  saw  thousands 
of  them  swarming  their  works,  and  scores  came  to 
meet  us,  bringing  on  stretchers  the  ghastly,  horribly 
mutilated  dead  whom  we  had  lost  in  the  charge  of  the 
day  previous.  The  sight  and  smell  would  have  made 
you  wild,  but  we  are  used  to  it.  I  had  no  particular 
business,  and  so  I  talked  with  the  rebel  officers  and 
found  myself  conversing  with  Colonel  Little,  of  the 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  117 

Eleventh  Georgia  Regiment,  and  with  the  rebel  General 
Gary.  They  were  very  gentlemanly,  and  we  had  a 
delightful  chat,  or  rather  argument,  of  two  hours; 
the  Colonel  being  very  social  and  jovial,  and  the  General 
trying  hard  to  convince  me  that  slavery  is  divine  and 
that  I  was  wrong.  I  frankly  told  him  that  I  was  a 
foreigner,  a  Sandwich  Islander,  who  had  no  local 
sympathies;  but  seeing  the  great  issue  to  be  that  of 
freedom  or  slavery  for  4,000,000  souls,  had  given  myself 
to  the  war  cheerfully,  and  counted  no  sacrifice  too 
great  for  the  cause.  I  told  them  I  commanded  a 
colored  regiment,  and  all  this,  instead  of  disgusting 
them,  seemed  to  win  their  respect;  rather  unusual, 
since  officers  of  Negro  troops  are  commonly  despised 
in  the  South. 

"  The  General  said  he  thought  it  more  reasonable 
to  fight,  as  I  was  doing,  for  a  principle  than  to  fight 
merely  to  restore  a  Union  which  was  only  a  compact 
and  to  which  they  were  not  morally  bound  when  they 
considered  the  other  side  had  violated  the  agreement. 
The  truth  is,  I  partially  agreed  with  him.  The  Union 
is  to  me  little  or  nothing.  I  see  no  great  principle 
necessarily  involved  in  it.  I  see  only  the  4,000,000 
slaves,  and  for  and  with  them  I  fight.  The  rebs  told 
me  they  buried  a  good  many  of  our  colored  men,  for 
they  were  the  very  men  we  had  fought  the  day  before. 

"Well,  the  General  tried  to  show  me  the  evils  of 
slavery  v/erc  imaginary,  that  it  is  divine  and  all  right, 
etc.  His  manner  and  language  were  charming.  He 
\vas  a  graduate  of  Harvard  (class  of  '54,  I  believe). 
He  did  not,  however,  admit  that  slavery  was  the  corner- 
stone of  the  Confederacy,  and  he  further  assured  me 
that  Alexander  Stephens,  who  used  that  famous 
expression  about  slavery  being  the  corner-stone,  etc., 
had  retracted  his  language  at  a  subsequent  time, 


n8  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

and    his    opinion    is,    I  think,  strongly   supported   in 
the  South." 

The  period  spent  in  the  trenches  before  Petersburg 
was  a  time  of  heavy  responsibilities  for  Armstrong. 
He  was  obliged  to  work  day  and  night  strengthening 
and  improving  the  works  held  by  his  brigade;  and 
at  the  end  of  this  time,  about  October  ist,  when 
his  regiment  was  removed  from  Petersburg  and  sent 
to  a  point  very  near  the  rebel  lines,  seven  miles  from 
Richmond,  he  succumbed  to  fatigue  and  went  to 
the  officers'  hospital  near  Fort  Monroe,  only  a  few 
rods  from  the  scenes  of  his  later  life-work.  While 
he  was  there  his  regiment  was  sent  to  attack  Fort 
Gilmer,  one  of  the  main  defenses  of  Richmond. 
Concerning  this  attack  he  wrote  home  as  follows : 

"My  regiment  was  sent  alone  and  unsupported  to 
attack  a  tremendously  powerful  fort  supported  by  two 
other  strong  forts,  also  by  a  heavy  line  of  breastworks, 
and  before  this  immense  line  was  a  very  large,  deep 
ditch  and  slashed  timber  for  over  half  a  mile,  making 
it  almost  impossible  to  even  get  to  the  enemy's  lines. 
The  Ninth  went  in  nobly,  was  raked  and  cut  to  pieces, 
and  finally  fell  back  before  a  hellish  fire  of  grape, 
canister,  shrapnel  and  shell  from  three  forts. 

"To  go  forward  would  have  been  certain  destruction. 
The  Negroes  never  turned  their  backs,  but  walked 
steadily  'into  the  mouth  of  hell'  until  the  commanding 
officer  ordered  a  retreat.  About  one-third  of  the 
regiment  was  hors  de  combat.  No  men  were  ever 
braver  than  the  slaves  of  Maryland.  I  was  of  course 
absent,  but  the  officers  of  the  regiment  were  heard  after 


SAMUEL    CHAPMAN1    ARMSTRONG 
Taken  about  the  time  of  his  sujourn  at  the  officers'  hospital  at   Hampton,   Va. 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  119 

they  came  back  to  curse  the  general  who  managed 
them  so  badly,  and  to  'thank  God  that  Colonel  Arm- 
strong was  not  there,  for  if  he  had  been  there  they 
would  all  have  been  in  hell  or  Richmond.'  They  don't 
expect  to  get  the  order  from  me  to  retreat.  I  only  tell 
the  truth  when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  numbered  among 
the  fighting  men.  Still  I  think  I  should  never  sacrifice 
my  men  for  nothing;  such  a  course  is  wrong  morally." 

On  returning  to  the  field  he  was  put  for  a  short 
time  in  command  of  the  second  brigade  of  his 
division,  and  on  November  3d  was  promoted  to  the 
colonelcy  of  the  Eighth  United  States  Colored 
Troops,  which  were  stationed  close  to  the  borders 
of  Richmond.  Of  this  new  command  he  wrote : 

"The  men  are  tried  soldiers,  and  it  is  considered  the 
best  colored  regiment  in  Birney's  division.  I  have 
a  splendid  camp  and  a  very  fine  brass  band — the  only 
one  in  the  division.  Men  all  live  in  log  houses,  so  do  I. 
Have  cozy  fireplaces,  where  we  sit  and  think  hour  after 
hour  or  read.  The  'Household  Book  of  Poetry'  is 
everything  to  me;  it  is  my  constant  friend,  but  unluckily 
books  are  scarce,  and  it  is  in  great  demand.  It  is  now 
on  a  visit  to  headquarters  first  brigade  of  my  division, 
and  my  own  brigade  commander  sends  frequently  for 
it,  and  others — all  wish  to  get  it.  The  collection  is,  I 
think,  a  superb  one.  One  of  the  sweetest  things  in 
it  is  'Lycidas,'  by  Milton.  Have  you  noticed  the 
'Trailing  Arbutus,'  by  Rose  Terry?  The  last  stanza 
is  exquisite. 

"There  is  some  talk,  of  arming  my  regiment  with 
the  famous  and  deadly  Spencer  repeating  rifle.  The 
rebels  are  in  terror  of  it,  and  it  is  given  to  but  very 


120  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

few  regiments  in  the  army.  It  is  very  elaborate  and 
expensive. 

"We  are  kept  constantly  on  the  qui  vive.  The 
enemy  is  near.  I  can  sit  at  my  tent  door  and  see  their 
long  line  of  earthworks,  with  immensely  strong 
forts  thrown  in  every  quarter  of  a  mile.  Their  guns  are 
pointed  at  us  and  ours  at  them.  I  can  see  their  tents 
easily.  They  can  at  any  time  throw  a  loo-pound  shell 
right  into  my  camp,  yes,  a  dozen  of  them;  we  are  in  easy 
artillery  range,  but  both  sides  seem  to  have  tacitly 
agreed  not  to  fire,  and  so  we  live  on,  perfectly  at  ease 
and  always  ready.  The  pickets  stand  watching  each 
other  some  300  yards  apart,  often  much  less.  During 
the  last  two  nights  they  have  attacked  our  lines  at 
Bermuda  Hundred  and  got  us  all  up,  which  was  not 
agreeable.  .  .  . 

"I  have  a  splendid  regiment  and  a  splendid  oppor- 
tunity; shall  do  or  die;  shall  be  distinguished  or 
extinguished — that  is,  if  I  shall  have  the  chance." 

But  the  chance  never  came.  Winter  and  the 
war  drew  together  to  a  close.  April  3d  Petersburg 
was  evacuated,  and  on  April  Qth  Lee,  unable  to 
escape  from  the  tightening  lines  of  the  Union  forces, 
saw  that  he  could  not  save  Richmond,  and  signed 
terms  of  capitulation.  Armstrong  witnessed  the 
surrender  and  thus  describes  it : 

"APPOMATTOX  COURT  HOUSE,  Virginia, 
"April  9,  i86^.K 

"God  is  great!  To-day,  by  His  help,  the  great 
Confederate  General  and  his  army  have  surrendered 
unconditionally.  I  have  [just  been  viewing  from  a 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  121 

near    eminence    the    captive    host,    the    artillery    and 
wagon  trains. 

"Yesterday  General  Custer  took  all  the  supplies  sent 
from  Lynchburg  to  Lee's  army;  our  army  closed  in 
around  the  rebels,  and  this  morning  they  found  them- 
selves surrounded  and  without  provisions.  Early  we 
advanced  and  our  skirmish  lines  met  those  of  the 
enemy.  Mine  drove  not  only  the  rebel  skirmishers, 
but  also  their  line  of  battle.  We  expected  a  fight — 
I  never  felt  more  like  it.  I  mounted  my  noble  stallion 
and  was  ready  to  lead  on  at  the  word.  A  few  bullets 
whistled  around,  a  few  shells  passed  over — the  rebs 
gave  way — all  was  quiet,  there  was  a  rumor  of  sur- 
render; we  waited;  other  rumors  came,  and  finally  it 
was  certain  that  the  cruel  war  was  over.  The  first 
inkling  I  had  of  it  was  the  continuous  cheering  of  troops 
on  our  right.  Soon  staff  officers  galloped  up  with  the 
news  that  Lee  was  making  terms  of  surrender;  the 
firing  ceased.  It  was  impossible  to  realize  that  the 
terrible  army  of  Lee  was  in  existence  no  longer!  The 
truth  was  stunning.  As  for  myself,  I  felt  a  sadness,  a 
feeling  that  the  colored  soldiers  had  not  done  enough, 
been  sufficiently  proved.  We  just  missed  a  splendid 
chance  of  taking  a  rebel  battery  an  hour  before  Sheldon's 
cavalry  came  tumbling  back — the  rebs  were  driving 
them,  and  we  were  put  in  to  arrest  their  advance,  which 
we  easily  did,  for  they  no  sooner  saw  us  than  they 
halted  and  retired  before  our  skirmishers.  This  delay 
lost  us  our  chance." 

Although  he  now  received  a  brevet  title  of 
brigadier-general  of.  volunteers,  and  commanded 
brigades  for  some  months  to  come,  he  never  while 
in  the  army  wore  his  brigadier's  stars,  using  the 


122  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong1 

familiar  colonel's  eagles.  When  a  friend  questioned 
him  about  this  habit,  he  laughed  and  said:  "Oh,  I 
guess  I'll  stick  to  the  old  birds." 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Civil  War  was  over, 
the  colored  troops  were  not  at  once  disbanded. 
Mexico  had  also  been  in  the  throes  of  civil  war, 
and  the  insurgents  were  plotting  for  the  overthrow 
of  the  Emperor  Maximilian.  To  lend  friendly 
support  to  the  republican  insurgents  and  to  secure 
our  own  boundary  lines  during  the  confusion  it  was 
decided  to  send  a  small  force  to  the  Mexican  border. 
Of  this  force  Armstrong's  regiment,  the  Eighth 
United  States  Colored  Troops,  was  a  part,  and  May 
30,  1865,  he  embarked  for  Texas,  writing  a  month 
later  to  his  mother  as  follows: 

"We  had  a  most  delightful  run  from  the  fort  to 
Mobile  Harbor.  Most  of  the  way  the  sea  was  perfectly 
smooth,  and  I  was  very  little  seasick.  We  took  the 
'outside  passage';  passed  'Memory  Rock,'  the  Bahama 
Islands,  Key  West  and  the  'Dry  Tortugas.' 

"You  can  hardly  imagine  how  glorious  it  was  to  sit 
on  one  of  the  huge  paddle-boxes  at  sunset — seeing  the 
sun  go  down,  the  western  sky  draped  in  the  most 
gorgeous  cloud  -  tapestry  —  the  ship  gliding  swiftly 
through  a  glassy  sea — a  brass  band  discoursing  rich 
music,  and  a  scene  of  life  and  pleasure  on  board.  The 
nights  were  warm  and  many  of  us  slept  on  deck,  subject, 
however,  to  the  inconvenience  of  being  roused  very 
early  when  the  ship  was  washed  down. 

"It  is  no  easy  matter  to  regulate  a  thousand  men 
crowded  on  shipboard,  unused  to  the  sea,  sick  or  uneasy 
or  irritated  with  ennui.  Still,  our  voyage  passed  off 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  123 

very  well — the  men  were  kept  clean  and  were  fed.  I 
used  to  have  them  stripped,  100  at  a  time,  put  in  the 
forward  part  of  the  ship  and  then  had  the  hose  play  on 
them." 

As  they  approached  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande 
River,  in  order  to  land  at  Brazos  Santiago,  the  first 
stopping-place,  a  shipwreck  occurred  in  which  his 
whole  expedition  nearly  came  to  a  disastrous  end. 

On  attempting  to  land,  they  found  the  sea 
running  very  high  near  the  river's  mouth.  Arm- 
strong left  the  ship  and  went  ashore  to  select  a 
camp-ground  and  assist  from  the  shore  side  in 
landing  his  men. 

"  I  then  took  my  position  on  a  pile  of  lumber  to  watch 
my  regiment  come  ashore,  it  having  been  transferred 
to  a  large  schooner  in  order  to  get  over  the  bar,  which 
is  very  shallow  and  across  which  the  surf  breaks. 
Indeed,  this  is  an  ugly  coast  and  is  strewn  with  wrecks. 
There  is  a  sand  bar  and  a  line  of  breakers  for  hundreds 
of  miles  along  this  shore. 

"The  surf  was  running  high,  and  lying  well  over, 
under  a  stiff  breeze,  the  vessel  stood  in  for  the  bar.  I 
had  heard  it  stated  that  she  drew  too  much  water  to 
pass  the  bar,  and  knew  that  the  best  pilot  in  port 
refused  to  bring  her  in.  The  schooner  came  tearing  in, 
but  all  at  once  she  stopped,  her  sails  shivered,  and 
there  she  lay  among  the  breakers  with  my  regiment  on 
board  and  darkness  just  coming  on. 

"I  never  in  my  life  was  more  distressed  or  helpless. 
Got  a  boat's  crew  to  pull  me  out  toward  the  wreck,  but 
it  was  impossible  to  reach  her.  She  was  fairly  crowded 
with  men  and  I  expected  to  lose  half  at  least  of  them. 


124  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

She  drifted  and  thumped  along,  however,  toward  the 
remains  of  an  old  steamer,  the  Nassau,  formerly 
wrecked  in  Banks 's  expedition,  and  whose  engine  was 
partly  out  of  water.  The  greatest  danger  was  that 
the  schooner  would  drift  against  this  wreck  and  break 
to  pieces.  This  was  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night." 

He  found  some  Italian  boatmen  who  undertook 
to  unload  the  steamer,  but  looking  about  for  a 
quicker  means  of  saving  his  men  he  found  a  large 
metallic  life-boat,  perfectly  sound,  which  had  drifted 
ashore.  This  he  manned  with  his  own  officers  and 
men,  and  in  spite  of  a  recently  broken  arm  took 
the  steering-oar  himself  and  put  out  to  the  schooner. 

"It  was  most  exciting  and  difficult,  as  my  right  arm 
is  nearly  useless  for  hard  work.  The  rollers  would 
come  in  and  pick  up  my  boat  and  carry  it  like  a  shot 
for  a  few  rods,  and  as  it  was  so  short  and  light  it  was 
difficult  to  keep  it  in  the  right  position.  I  wonder  I  did 
not  break  my  arm  or  get  stunned  or  swamped,  for  the 
oar  would  sometimes  be  snapped  out  of  my  hand,  and 
the  boat  would  slew  around  and  I  could  barely  fix  her 
for  the  next  wave.  The  surf  kept  increasing,  and  my 
little  boat  would  sometimes  stand  up,  almost,  or  be 
lost  in  spray.  But  nothing  serious  happened  till  the 
schooner  broke  away  and  drifted  up  so  close  that  the 
men  jumped  off. 

"The  discipline  of  the  men  never  broke,  but  every 
man  stood  at  his  post  till  called  for.  Those  on  shore 
were  organized  into  parties  for  seizing  the  boats  as  the 
waves  swept  them  in,  generally  half  full  of  water; 
helped  the  men  out,  bailed  out  the  boats  and  started 
us  off  again  for  the  ship.  Others  were  boiling  coffee 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  125 

for  the  wet  and  drenched  troops ;  the  Chaplain  dealt  out 
whisky.  All  those  working  were  stripped  to  the  waist 
and  barefoot.  Officers  and  men  pulled  oars  side  by 
side  It  was  exciting. 

"At  last,  after  I  had  got  about  400  men  off  in  boats, 
the  schooner  drifted  close  in  and  the  troops  jumped 
off,  throwing  their  knapsacks  overboard  and  jumping 
after  them.  I  only  lost  about  ten  guns  and  twenty 
knapsacks,  and  no  lives." 

Brazos  Santiago  is  a  long,  low  island,  entirely 
destitute  of  verdure  and  below  the  level  of  the 
highest  winter  tides. 

"There  is  no  wood  to  be  had,  no  water  in  the  region. 
We  use  condensed  water  often  while  it  is  warm,  or  the 
water  of  the  Rio  Grande,  which  is  nine  miles  off  and  is 
brought  here  in  schooners.  It  is  very  nasty  just  now, 
as  the  river  is  swollen. 

"At  one  time  there  were  10,000  troops  here  three  days, 
and  2,000  gallons  of  water  per  day  supplied.  Some  of 
my  regiment  walked  to  the  Rio  Grande,  loaded  with 
canteens  and  dragging  a  barrel  for  water.  There  was 
much  suffering. 

"We  get  no  fresh  vegetables  or  vegetables  of  any 
kind  and  seldom  secure  fresh  meat.  Our  men  are 
worked  to  death  unloading  vessels,  and  we  are  all 
disgusted  and  greatly  provoked  and  are  fast  getting 
demoralized.  We  seldom  receive  letters  or  newspapers 
— nothing  ever  happens. 

"We  expect  to  move  soon  up  the  Rio  Grande,  but 
here  there  are  no  mosquitoes  or  sand-flies.  Further  up 
there  are  swarms  of  flies  and  mosquitoes  and  'swifts' 
and  snakes.  The  'prickly  pear'  covers  the  whole 
country.  The  prospect  is  dismal,  withering,  though, 


126  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

speaking  for  myself,  I  am  not  feeling  very  uneasy  or 
demoralized." 

By  August  the  regiment,  with  one  other,  was 
encamped  at  Ringgold  Barracks,  where  it  remained 
till  early  in  October.  This  was  a  dull  but  healthful 
spot,  and  as  the  officers  became  acquainted  with  the 
people  they  varied  the  monotony  of  camp  life  by 
giving  balls  and  dinners  to  their  friends.  One  of 
the  latter  occasions  he  described  to  his  sister: 

"To-day  I  gave  a  dinner  to  the  commander  of  the 
Liberal  forces  in  the  north  of  Mexico  and  his  staff. 
I  had  invited  him  to  come  and  bring  a  few  friends, 
expecting  about  five  in  all.  A  small  army  came.  A 
great  cloud  of  dust  announced  their  coming  and  made 
us  tremble.  We  were  amazed,  confounded,  dumb ! 
Were  we  to  feed  a  regiment?  Your  brother  Samuel 
was  in  a  fix  about  that  time.  I  hadn't  invited  the 
whole  army,  yet  it  came.  The  General  dismounted. 
We  rushed  (literally)  into  each  other's  arms,  the  Mexican 
expression  of  cordiality.  I  hugged  half  a  score  of  these 
Indians.  My  own  field  and  staff  officers  did  the  same. 
Oh,  what  a  funny  scene !  None  of  them  could  talk 
English;  we  couldn't  talk  Spanish.  A  weasel-faced 
quack  doctor  (surgeon-general  of  the  army)  acted  as 
interpreter.  Polite  inquiries  were  exchanged  and  diplo- 
matic observations  (and  lies)  passed  and  repassed. 
My  line  tents  (ten  large  wall  tents)  were  nearly  filled 
and  I  had  in  my  tent  the  only  interpreter.  There  was 
lots  of  glorious  good  feeling  and  lots  of  hugging  and 
clinking  of  glasses,  and  bows  and  grimaces,  and  then 
more  hugging  and  lively  conversation  on  a  very  small 
stock  of  words,  not  over  a  dozen  (in  Spanish).  But 


Life  in  the  Army.    J862-J865  127 

the  dinner !  Ghosts  of  all  housekeepers,  embodied  and 
disembodied !  The  day  of  miracles  being  past  and  a 
deus  ex  machina  coming  down  on  only  a  few  favored 
stages,  we  had  to  resort  to  substantial  and  ordinary 
means. 

"We  dined  ten  at  a  time.  I  took  the  principal 
men  to  the  first  table,  which  was  set  under  a  canvas 
covering,  and  which  was  decorated  with  a  common  reed 
much  resembling  sorghum;  sorghum  on  the  floor,  over- 
head, and  on  every  side. 

"Think  of  a  May  party  or  a  Fourth-of-July  picnic 
with  sorghum  boughs  and  wreaths !  We  had,  after 
all,  a  'right  smart'  dinner,  and  of  course  the  proper 
toasts  were  proposed  and  responded  to,  all  of  which 
was  exceedingly  novel  and  rich.  I  spoke  on  behalf 
of  the  American  people;  made  touching  allusions 
to  the  national  sympathy,  kicked  old  'Max'  out  of 
the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  and  made  my  chief 
guest  the  hero  and  martyr  of  Mexican  liberty,  all  of 
which  was  put  into  Spanish  and  swallowed  (?). 
Some  attended  dress  parade.  Others  sat  down  at 
the  table,  and  then  the  regimental  band  performed. 
Everybody  grinned  and  said,  ' Muckisima  gusta,'  which 
means  'infinite  pleasure.' 

"  It  being  nearly  dark,  our  guests  took  their  departure 
amid  the  most  overwhelming  assurances  of  mutual 
satisfaction  and  violent  caressing.  I  hugged  General 
Espinoza  five  times  before  he  departed,  and  embraced 
more  than  I  have  any  recollection  of. 

"This  hugging  is  delightful.  I  wish  it  were  gener- 
ally introduced.  Confound  the  formality  of  our  society  ! 
Let  society  learn  the  etiquette  of  the  heart  on  the 
banks  of  the  Rio  Grande — dethrone  the  head  that 
now  rules  !  And  so  they  departed  amid  the  '  adios '  of 
everybody  and  'Hail,  Columbia'  from  the  band." 


128  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

From  the  same  place  he  wrote : 

"CAMP  EIGHTH  UNITED  STATES  COLORED  TROOPS. 
"RiNGGOLD  BARRACKS,  Texas, 

"August  23,  1865. 

"I  find  that  I  am  not  polite  and  accomplished.  I 
aim  rather  to  be  just  and  manly,  and  patiently  seek 
to  realize  the  higher,  more  heroic  qualities.  These  are 
a  guarantee  of  success,  not  what  is  commonly  called  so, 
but  of  that  fulness  and  completeness  in  character  that 
gives  an  inner  and  calm  and  rich  assurance  that  one  is 
a  true  man  and  makes  one  satisfied  no  matter  how 
circumstances  may  change.  This  inner  strength  is 
the  thing,  and  it  is  completed,  perfected  and  made 
glorious  by  religion.  Thus  one,  though  poor  and 
unnoticed,  may  be  greater,  grander  and  far  more 
beautiful  than  anything  that  is  made  of  the  costliest 
stone.  Men  are  as  a  rule  heathens;  we  adore  as  many 
absurdities  as  the  Hindoos;  society  impels  us  to  a  false 
manhood,  as  false  as  it  can  be.  Here  it  is  easier  to  be 
manly,  to  cultivate  noble  aspirations  than  in  the  most 
pious  New  England  village.  A  greasy,  dirty  Mexican, 
fighting  for  the  liberty  of  his  country,  inspires  me  more 
than  the  whole  faculty  of  Andover  Theological  Seminary 
would.  Don't  let  us  pity  the  Zulus  and  the  Eskimo 
too  much.  We  are  almost  as  blind  as  they — they  by 
darkness,  we  by  too  much  light.  Soldiering  has  some- 
times set  me  to  thinking.  My  few  opportunities  in  the 
army  have  been  of  far  more  use  to  me  than  the  abundant 
measure  I  had  before.  When  a  meeting-house  burns 
up  I  care  very  little ;  under  the  trees  it  is  better — under 
the  evening  sky  as  the  sun  goes  down  in  glory  (as  we 
worship)  is  the  grandest  time  and  place  for  it.  I  am 
terribly  down  on  two  sermons  every  Sunday.  The 
drawing-out  process  is  the  best  and  truest.  Set  the 


Life  in  the  Army*    J862-J865  129 

people  to  work  and  the  ministers  to  chewing  tobacco  if 
necessary  to  make  them  like  other  men,  not  still  and 
mannerish,  but  open,  free,  hearty  and  happy.  A  good 
hearty,  healthy  laugh  is  as  bad  for  the  devil  as  some  of 
the  long  nasal  prayers  I  have  heard — yes,  worse.  There 
is  religion  in  music,  in  the  opera.  Tell  me  anything 
more  sacred  than  the  prayer  in  'Freischutz'  (I  spell  it 
wrong) — '  Benedictus, '  it  is  called.  Is  there  anything 
purer  than  the  tender,  passionate  strains  of  '  Norma '  ? 
Ministers  say  the  opera  is  bad;  I  find  religion  there. 
They  say  to  walk  or  ride  out  on  Sunday  is  wicked. 
My  bethel  is  by  the  seashore ;  there  the  natural  language 
of  my  heart  is  prayer.  So  of  the  mountains. 

"Good  people  try  to  do  too  much  to  dodge  the  devil 
and  to  build  up  a  wall  to  keep  him  out.  What  does  he 
do?  He  helps  build  the  wall.  Meet  him  squarely; 
fight  the  inner  battle  of  self,  and  outward  forms — 
moralities — will  take  care  of  themselves.  Allow  young 
people  to  doubt — doubt  anything  and  everything — 
don't  crush  doubt,  because  you  crush  conviction  too. 
The  Hawaiian  missionaries  have  made  terrible  mistakes 
in  this  way." 

Early  in  October  he  was  ordered  to  Brownsville, 
Texas,  and  after  a  few  weeks'  stay  there  received 
his  discharge. 

Many  were  the  plans  for  future  work  which  filled 
his  mind  during  these  his  last  days  in  the  army. 
A  lieutenant-colonelcy  in  the  First  United  States 
Colored  Cavalry  was  offered  him,  but  he  did  not 
care  for  that  kind  of  work.  His  brothers  suggested 
business  openings,  and  he  himself  had  some  thoughts 
of  entering  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  then  just 


13°  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

becoming  prominent  in  work  for  the  Negro.  The 
world  must  have  spread  a  very  agreeable  prospect 
to  the  young  soldier,  well  born,  well  educated  and 
full  of  physical  vigor;  peace  brought  with  it  new 
prosperity,  and  everywhere  he  saw  room  for  men  of 
enterprise.  To  his  mother  he  wrote : 

"I  have  asked  Baxter  to  let  me  know  what  openings 
there  are  in  California,  either  of  lucrative  business  or  of 
other  kind.  I  may  go  to  New  York  City  if  Will  can  get 
me  fixed  off  there.  I  expect  to  begin  at  the  bottom  of 
the  ladder  and  work  along.  Don't  expect  to  study  a 
profession.  I  think  I  shall  get  into  the  right  place 
by  and  by." 

The  third  anniversary  of  his  enlistment,  a  few 
weeks  before  he  was  discharged,  brought  with  it  a 
new  conception  of  what  the  future  might  hold  in 
store  for  him. 

"To-day,  September  ist,  has  been  quiet  and  serene. 
A  good  deal  of  business,  but  steady  and  easy.  But  one 
eventful  thing  has  occurred.  My  lieutenant-colonel, 
major  and  myself  were  in  conversation  together  in  my 
tent.  The  subject  of  citizenship  was  mentioned,  and 
one  remarked  that  by  act  of  Congress  to  serve  in  the 
army  three  years  was  to  become  an  American  citizen. 
I  at  once  remembered  that  yesterday  I  had  been  just 
three  years  in  the  United  States  service,  -and  this 
morning  for  the  first  time  walked  out  into  the  sunlight 
and  air  a  citizen  of  the  Grand  Republic.  The  thought 
was  tremendous !  To  be  forever  under  the  shelter  of 
the  broad  pinions  of  the  American  eagle !  To  be  one 
of  the  mighty  brood  of  that  glorious  bird;  to  sing 


Life  in  the  Army.    1862- J865  131 

'My  Country,  Tis  of  Thee';  to  call  'the  flag  of  my 
country'  that  glorious  banner  that  has  for  four  years 
been  wreathed  in  smoke  and  torn  and  stained  in  count- 
less battles,  and  now  finally  and  forever  triumphant — 
this  is  a  thought  too  immense  to  be  grappled  at  once, 
but  enough  to  excite  the  profoundest  emotions.  We 
all  rose  to  our  feet  and  I  embraced  each  of  the  two  who 
were  with  me,  and  we  all  thought  it  was  very  jolly. 
I  have  thrown  off  the  'kapa'*  mantle  and  assumed  the 
toga  of  the  Republic. 

"There  may  be  a  place  for  me  in  the  struggle  for 
right  and  wrong  in  this  country." 

At  this  critical  time  in  his  career  his  thoughts 
turned  more  and  more  from  making  money  in  some 
well-chosen  business  enterprise  toward  the  service 
of  his  bellow  men.  He  wrote  : 

"I  have  not  given  myself  to  arms,  although  I  have 
been  one  of  the  most  fortunate  of  soldiers.  I  have 
chosen  no  profession,  nor  do  I  at  present  think  I 
shall  study  one. 

'cMy  capabilities  are  of  an  executive  nature,  and  I 
shall  seek  some  chance  of  usefulness  where  I  can  use 
my  talents  to  the  most  advantage  and  for  the  cause 
of  humanity. 

"My  purpose  is  to  serve  the  Great  Master  in  some 
way  as  well  as  I  can ;  to  be  of  use  to  my  fellow  men ;  to 
give  the  life  so  marvellously  spared  and  wonderfully 
blessed  to  the  source  of  all  mercy  and  blessing.  I 
shall  probably  not  enter  the  ministry;  am  not  made 
for  a  preacher.  I  should  rather  minister  than  be  a 
minister." 

*  Cloth  made  by  native  Hawaiians. 


132  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

Certainly  he  regarded  the  uncertainties  of  the 
future  with  no  dread. 

"There  is  something  in  this  standing  face  to  face  with 
destiny,  looking  into  its  darkness,  that  is  inspiring: 
it  appeals  to  manhood;  it  is  thrilling,  like  going  into 
action.0 


a  1 
<  * 

CA! 

Q 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FREEDMEN'S  BUREAU.     1866-1872 

AFTER  his  discharge,  Armstrong  went  to  New 
York,  where  he  spent  several  weeks  with  his  brother. 
Toward  the  close  of  winter  he  made  his  way  to 
Washington  with  some  thought  of  applying  for  a 
government  position,  but  what  he  saw  of  politi- 
cal office-seeking  in  the  President's  waiting-room 
so  disgusted  him  that  he  gave  up  this  idea,  and 
remembering  his  former  plan  of  work  for  the  Negro 
in  the  South,  applied  to  the  Bureau  of  Refugees, 
Freedmen  and  Abandoned  Lands  for  a  position. 

The  Freedmen' s  Bureau  had  come  into  being  in 
response  to  the  crying  needs  of  the  Negroes  left  help- 
lessly adrift  during  the  closing  months  of  the  war  i  / 
when  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  had  loosened 
home  ties  and  there  appeared  neither  refuge  for 
the  suffering  women,  children  and  infirm  nor  occu- 
pation for  the  able-bodied.  It  was  made  a  depart- 
ment of  Government  by  act  of  Congress,  1865, 
and  put  under  the  leadership  of  General  O.  O. 
Howard,  who,  as  Commissioner,  alone  directed 
its  operations  and  selected  the  men  that  were  to 
do  its  work. 

This  work  General  Howard  describes  as  follows: 


134  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

"The  first  consideration  was  how  to  do  the  work 
before  us.  The  plantations  were  all  left  uncultivated; 
some  were  abandoned,  all  had  lost  their  slaves.  People 
said,  'We  can't  raise  cotton  with  only  free  labor.' 
Our  task  was  to  show  them  they  could.  I  started  some 
joint  stock  companies  from  the  North.  Northern 
capital  undertook  the  work.  The  result  was,  more 
cotton  was  raised  the  first  year  after  the  war  than  had 
been  raised  in  any  one  year  before.  Other  years  were 
not  as  successful,  but  the  point  was  proved  and  an 
impulse  given  to  free  labor. 

"Another  work  we  had  to  do  was  to  settle  the  rela- 
tions between  the  former  master  and  ex-slave.  Troubles 
were  continually  arising.  To  settle  these  we  estab- 
lished courts  made  up  of  one  agent  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau,  one  man  selected  by  the  whites  and  one  by  the 
Negroes.  These  courts  settled  all  such  difficulties  till 
finally  the  courts  themselves  were  transferred  to  the 
State  and  local  authorities  upon  condition  of  the  recep- 
tion of  Negro  testimony. 

"Then  there  were  the  land  troubles.  When  the 
owners  abandoned  their  plantations  the  colored  people 
settled  on  them — lived  in  their  houses  and  used  the 
land. 

"Most  of  the  land  was  given  back  to  the  owners 
by  the  Government,  under  our  direction  and  advice. 
It  was  often  hard  on  the  colored  people.  I  was  sorry 
for  them  and  would  have  liked  sometimes  to  do  differ- 
ently. Yet  I  believe  it  was  on  the  whole  better  for  them. 
It  put  them  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder. 

"Then  we  had  a  hospital  department.  That  was 
for  the  old  and  decrepit  men  and  women  and  the  sick 
and  disabled  who  could  not  take  care  of  themselves. 
We  had  also  a  department  to  establish  asylums  for  the 
little  children  whose  fathers  had  been  killed  in  the 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau.    J866-J872  135 

war  or  who  had  strayed  from  their  homes  and  been 
lost,  as  many  had. 

"But  the  main  point  we  had  to  attend  to  was  the 
care  of  the  schools."  * 

The  bureau,  with  its  three  departments,  eco- 
nomic, charitable  and  educational,  thus  held  com- 
plete control  over  the  doings  and  prospects  of  the 
ex-slave.  It  was  a  government  within  a  govern- 
ment, held  closely  together  by  an  elaborate  system 
of  reports  from  subordinate  to  superior  and  directly 
responsible  to  its  own  Commissioner  only. 

Many  besides  Samuel  Armstrong  were  looking 
to  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  for  the  solution  of  the 
problems  that  were  vexing  the  nation.  What 
should  be  done  with  the  Negro?  How  secure  to 
him  his  new  political  rights?  How  befriend  with- 
out pauperizing  him?  How  fit  him  to  care  for 
himself  ? 

People  everywhere  in  the  North  were  asking 
these  questions — people  who  were  not  involved 
in  the  vortex  of  political  jobbery  that  surrounded 
Washington,  who  had  borne  the  strain  of  the  war 
for  conscience's  sake  and  who  were  now  prepared  to 
shoulder  the  responsibilities  that  followed  it;  and 
they  waited  for  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  to  present 
effective  answers  to  these  questions — answers  that 
should  settle  the  status  of  the  Negro  in  the  South 
in  a  permanent  and  satisfying  way.  This  was  not 

*  Address  delivered  by  General  Howard  at  Hampton  Insti- 
tute, 1889. 


136  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the  only  way  in  which  it  was  proposed  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  Negro ;  deportation  to  Africa,  segrega- 
tion of  the  Negroes  in  one  or  two  States  and  in  in- 
dustrial communities  managed  by  the  Government 
were  suggested,  but  the  people  in  general  looked  to 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau  to  show  the  way  out. 

While  this  organization  combined  such  differing 
forms  of  activity,  the  workers  in  it  themselves  pre- 
sented also  varied  aspects  of  character  and  fitness. 
Some  men  and  women  more  zealous  than  well  in- 
formed sought  in  it  an  outlet  to  their  charitable 
desires;  others,  less  zealous,  found  lucrative  posi- 
tions at  the  expense  of  their  charges ;  however,  many 
intelligent  and  public-spirited  persons  were  installed 
under  its  direction. 

General  Howard's  policy  was  to  place  officers  of 
the  regular  army  at  the  most  responsible  points, 
while  civilians  were  usually  employed  as  agents  at 
less  important  centers ;  and  when  Samuel  Armstrong 
applied,  with  a  letter  from  his  late  chief  of  staff 
and  his  brilliant  record  as  an  officer  of  colored 
troops,  he  was  received  favorably. 

Concerning  the  interview  General  Howard  writes : 

"Though  already  a  general,  General  Armstrong 
seemed  to  me  very  young.  His  quick  motions  and 
nervous  energy  were  apparent  then.  He  spoke  rapidly 
and  wanted  matters  decided  if  possible  on  the  spot. 
I  was  then  very  favorably  impressed  with  his  knowledge 
and  sentiment  toward  the  freedmen,  and  thought  he 
would  make  a  capital  sub-commissioner." 


The  Freedmen's  Bateau*     J866-J872  137 

There  was  no  vacancy  in  the  department,  however, 
and  Armstrong  left  the  office,  visited  friends  and 
decided  to  return  to  New  York.  But  before  leaving 
Washington  he  again  called,  satchel  in  hand,  at  the 
office  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  to  see  if  an  opening 
had  presented  itself  since  his  former  visit.  As  he 
entered  the  office  one  of  the  aides  looked  up  and 
said:  "We've  a  great  lot  of  contrabands  down  on 
the  Virginia  Peninsula  and  can't  manage  them;  no 
one  has  had  success  in  keeping  them  straight. 
General  Howard  thinks  you  might  try  it."  Another 
conversation  with  that  officer  resulted  in  Armstrong's 
receiving  a  double  appointment — as  agent  under  the 
Freedmen's  Bureau,  having  control  over  ten  counties,  J 
the  fifth  sub-district  of  Virginia,  and  also  as  superin- 
tendent of  schools,  or  Bureau  Superintendent,  over 
a  large,  loosely  defined  area. 

As  agent  he  was  one  of  eight  men  who  controlled 
the  fortunes  of  the  Negroes  and  to  a  certain  extent 
of  the  whites  throughout  the  State  of  Virginia, 
each  of  the  eight  holding  a  district  of  from  six  to 
twelve  counties  and  reporting  to  Colonel  Orlando 
Brown,  at  Richmond,  who  held  the  office  of  Assistant 
Commissioner.  As  Bureau  Superintendent,  Arm- 
strong was  one  of  several  men  holding  that  office  J 
in  the  State,  but  he  alone  usually  reported  directly 
to  General  Howard  on  all  matters  connected  with 
the  education  of  the  freedmen.  General  Howard 
urged  that  he  now  officially  use  the  title  of  General, 
thinking  that  it  would  help  him  to  secure  the  imme- 


138  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

diate  respect  of  his  subordinates,  many  of  whom  were 
army  officers,  when  he,  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
seven,  appeared  among  them  as  their  superior. 

About  March  15,  1866,  Armstrong  arrived  at  Fort 
Monroe  and  rode  a  few  miles  to  his  post  at  the  village 
of  Hampton.  Hampton  is  beautifully  situated  near 
the  mouth  of  a  short  tidal  river  and  was  once  one 
of  the  finest  towns  in  the  South,  but  several  years 
before  Armstrong's  arrival  had  been  burned  to  the 
ground,  and  only  massive  chimneys,  with  gaping 
fireplaces,  remained  to  mark  the  site  of  former 
pleasant  homes.  The  contrabands,  like  weeds 
springing  up  on  burned  ground,  had  swarmed  over 
the  place,  building  huts  or  pitching  tents  against 
the  old  chimneys.  Within  a  radius  of  three  miles 
from  his  office  lived  7,000  Negroes,  camping  in  this 
squalid  fashion,  waiting  for  they  knew  not  what. 
The  immediately  surrounding  country  under  his 
control  was  a  vast  stretch  of  low,  often  marshy, 
partially  wooded  land,  dotted  with  hospital  barracks 
and  log  cabins,  intersected  by  the  muddy  roads  of 
Virginia,  and  bounded  on  the  east  and  north  by  the 
waters  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay  and  the  ocean. 

Full  of  enthusiasm  for  his  work  and  full  of  the 
courage  of  youth,  Armstrong  settled  himself  in  his 
new  home.  He  made  his  headquarters,  with  his  staff 
of  assistants,  at  an  old  mansion  near  the  residence 
of  the  teachers  employed  by  the  American  Mis- 
sionary Association,  and  appeared  as  a  conspicuous 
figure  among  the  isolated  little  group  of  Northerners 


The  Fteedmen's  Bureau*    J866-J872          139 

working  under  difficult  conditions,  making  many 
mistakes,  yet  furthering  as  best  they  could  what 
they  conceived  to  be  the  highest  interests  of  the 
community. 

His  associates  trusted  from  the  first  that  his 
strong,  straightforward  methods  would  untangle 
the  network  of  political  and  social  difficulties  in 
which  they  had  been  working.  With  a  happy 
temperament,  an  easy  control  of  subordinates  and 
a  natural  gift  for  dealing  with  the  Negroes,  he 
inspired  general  confidence  and  soon  brought  about 
order  throughout  his  district. 

He  wrote  to  his  mother  as  follows: 

"BUREAU  OP  REFUGEES,  FREEDMEN  AND 

ABANDONED  LANDS, 

"Headquarters  Superintendent  Ninth  District,  Virginia. 
"FORT  MONROE,  Virginia,  June  2,  1866. 

"Dear  Mother:  I  have  been  on  duty  in  the  bureau 
three  months,  and  a  singular  experience  it  has  been. 
Providence  seemed  to  put  me  in  just  the  place  I  wanted. 

"The  work  is  very  difficult;  there  are  here,  congre- 
gated in  little  villages,  some  5,000  colored  people, 
crowded,  squalid,  poor,  and  idle.  It  is  my  work  to 
scatter  and  renovate  them;  one  in  which  much  is  ex- 
pected, but  very  limited  means  are  given.  I  think 
I  have  secured  the  confidence  of  the  people  as  well  as 
of  my  superiors,  at  least  so  far  that  I  am  the  only 
civilian  in  the  whole  bureau  occupying  a  position  of 
superintendent,  which  is  a  special  favor  from  General 
Howard.  All  the  rest  are  discharged.  How  long  this 
work  will  last  I  do  not  know — it  ma;-  soon  die  out,  or 
I  may  be  discharged,  or  it  may  lead  me  to  some  other 


140  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

work.     I  am  uncertain  of  the  future,  but  still  am  confi- 
dent that  all  will  be  well. 

"I  am  living  in  the  so-called  'Massenburg  house/ 
once  one  of  the  stateliest  of  the  beautiful  village  of 
Hampton,  now  shorn  of  its  glory — its  greenhouse  and 
garden  destroyed  and  its  rooms  turned  into  offices  and 
quarters.  In  the  rear  of  the  house  is  the  bureau  jail, 
where  I  summarily  stow  away  all  sorts  of  people  when 
they  are  unruly — I  have  murderers,  thieves,  liars,  and 
all  sorts  of  disorderly  characters — a  squad  of  soldiers 
under  my  orders,  who  make  quick  work  with  any 
troublesome  people.  I  am  quite  independent  and  like 
the  position  and  the  work. 

"I  have  about  a  dozen  officers  under  me,  though  I 
am  a  civilian,  and  a  glorious  field  of  labor.  I  have 
some  thirty-four  lady  teachers  from  the  North.  Some 
splendid  people  are  helping  me. 

"This  place  is  historic.  A  little  above  here  is 
Jamestown,  in  my  district,  where  the  first  settlers  came, 
and  the  ruins  of  their  church  are  standing.  In  my  field 
were  fought  many  hard  battles,  and  some  of  my  own. 

"This  Hampton  has  been  the  city  of  refuge  of  the 
Negroes  throughout  the  war — here  they  came  from  all 
Virginia  to  seek  freedom,  food  and  a  home;  hither 
caravans  daily  poured  in  for  months  with  young,  old 
and  helpless,  and  here  they  built  their  little  cabins  and 
did  what  they  could. 

"Here  were  raised  several  colored  regiments,  which 
took  the  men  and  left  the  women  helpless — and  oh, 
the  misery  there  has  been — it  can  never  be  told !  But 
the  worst  is  over.  The  men  came  not  back,  since 
most  were  killed,  disabled  or  died,  and  here  are  their 
families  in  my  charge;  and  they  are  a  great  care;  we 
issue  18,000  rations  a  day  to  those  who  would  die  of 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau.     \  866-  \  872  141 

starvation  were  it  not  for  this,  and  keep  their  children 
at  school,  and  get  them  work  and  prevent  injustice. 
Take  us  away  and  the  Negroes  might  as  well  all  be 
hanged  at  once. 

"There  is  not  much  peace;  work  comes  on  all  days  of 
the  week,  Sundays  not  except ed.  I  like  it — there  is  a 
large  field  and  lots  to  do.  I  am  compelled  to  do  some 
speech-making — have  held  forth  at  divers  times  and 
places  to  the  darkies.  Have  to  deal,  too,  with  some 
cute,  oily  white  men,  smart  as  steel  and  smooth  as 
sycophants ;  it  reminds  me  of  the  old  times  when  I  was 
editor  of  the  Hae  Hawaii. 

"I  am  going  around  to  the  county  court-houses 
where  the  Circuit  Court  holds  session  (next  week)  and 
harangue  the  mobs. 

"To-day  is  Sunday — went  to  meeting,  sang  in  choir; 
dine  with  Mrs.  D . 

"Yesterday  I  received  a  courteous  note  from  a  highly 

accomplished  and  wealthy  lady  of  New  York,  Miss  W , 

asking  for  two  photographs  of  mine;  one  for  Count  de 
Gasparin  and  one  for  Laboulaye  of  France,  as  one  who 
has  drilled  the  colored  troops;  she  is  making  a  collec- 
tion of  United  States  officers  for  these  gentlemen. 

' '  You  have  no  idea  of  what  splendid  oysters  we  have 
here — the  best  in  the  world — cheap  as  dirt — and  lots 
of  fish  in  summer;  fine  roads  and  rides. 

"I  will  tell  you  my  counties,  so  you  can  see  my 
domain  on  the  map.  They  are  these:  Matthews, 
Gloucester,  York,  Warwick,  Elizabeth  City,  Charles 
City,  James  City,  New  Kent,  and  King  William  counties. 

"General  Howard  told  me  it  was  the  hardest  position 
to  fill  he  had:  there  is  such  ill  feeling  between  whites 
and  blacks,  so  many  paupers,  so  much  idleness,  and 
such  an  enormous  population. 


142  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"Shine,  ye  lucky  stars! 

"There  is  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water  before  the  vil- 
lage— the  scene  of  the  fight  between  the  Merrimac 
and  the  Monitor;  the  naval  rendezvous  of  the  war 
and  twice  the  base  of  operations  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

"The  work  is  splendid,  and  if  God  leads  me  as  He  has 
done,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  fear — all  will  be  well. 
"  I  am  known  as  General  Armstrong  by  everybody." 

He  wrote  later  in  an  official  report  concerning 
his  work  at  Hampton : 

"Colored  squatters  by  thousands  and  General  Lee's 
disbanded  soldiers  returning  to  their  families  came 
together  in  my  district  on  hundreds  of  'abandoned' 
farms  which  the  Government  had  seized  and  allowed 
the  freedmen  to  occupy.  There  was  irritation,  but  both 
classes  were  ready  to  do  the  fair  thing.  It  was  about  a 
two  years'  task  to  settle  matters  by  making  terms 
with  the  landowners,  who  employed  many  laborers 
on  their  restored  homes.  Swarms  went  back  to  the 
'old  plantation'  on  passes,  with  thirty  days'  rations. 

"Hardest  of  all  was  to  settle  the  ration  question; 
about  2,000  having  been  fed  for  years  were  demoralized 
and  seemed  hopeless.  Notice  was  given  that  in  three 
months,  on  October  i,  1866,  all  rations  would  be  stopped 
except  to  those  in  hospital,  for  whom  full  provision  was 
made.  Trouble  was  expected,  but  there  was  not  a 
ripple  of  it  or  a  complaint  that  day.  Their  resource 
was  surprising.  The  Negro  in  a  tight  place  is  a  genius. 

"In  general,"  said  he,  "the  whites  were  well  disposed, 
but  inactive  in  suppressing  any  misconduct  of  the 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau.    J866-J872  143 

lower  class.  Friendliness  between  the  races  was 
general,  broken  only  by  political  excitement,  and  was 
due,  I  think,  to  the  fact  that  they  had  been  brought 
up  together,  often  in  the  most  intimate  way,  from 
childhood;  a  surprise  to  me,  for  on  missionary  ground 
parents — with  the  spirit  of  martyrs — take  every  pains 
to  prevent  contact  of  their  children  with  the  natives 
around  them. 

"Martial  law  prevailed;  there  were  no  civil  courts, 
and  for  many  months  the  bureau  officer  in  each  county 
acted  on  all  kinds  of  cases,  gaining  generally  the  confi- 
dence of  both  races.  When  martial  law  was  over  and 
the  rest  were  everywhere  discontinued,  the  military 
court  at  Hampton  was  kept  up  by  common  consent  for 
about  six  months. 

"Scattered  families  were  reunited.  From  even 
Louisiana — for  the  whole  South  was  mapped  out,  each 
county  officered  and  as  a  rule  wisely  administered — 
would  come  inquiries  about  the  relatives  and  friends  of 
one  who  had  been  sold  to  traders  years  before,  and  great 
justice  and  humanity  were  done  in  bringing  together 
broken  households." 

The  Freedmen's  Bureau  was  not  the  only  agency 
at  work  for  the  relief  of  the  freedmen.  Fourteen 
different  societies,  distinct  in  operation  though  alike 
in  aim,  had  their  agents  at  work  in  the  South, 
supplemented  further  by  freedmen' s  departments 
in  the  northern  churches  and  private  charity 
acting  through  various  channels. 

Wherever  the  Negroes  were  found  there  were 
gathered  together  missionaries,  lady  teachers, 
soldiers,  and  cooperating  with  all,  supplementing 


144  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

their  work  and  yet  in  authority  over  them  all, 
the  Freedmen's  Bureau. 

There  was  much  room  for  individual  action  among 
the  agents  of  the  bureau.  It  was  General  Howard's 
policy  to  set  forth  clearly  to  his  subordinates,  by 
means  of  frequent  circular  letters,  the  general 
policy  to  be  pursued,  and  then  to  leave  to  their 
discretion  the  execution  of  details.  Thus  the  bureau 
offered  much  scope  to  a  man  of  executive  powers, 
while  demanding  the  exercise  of  constant  tact  and 
originality. 

There  was  opportunity  for  pleasure  as  well  as 
routine  work  in  this  life,  and  that  of  a  sort  that 
suited  Armstrong's  tastes  exactly.  He  owned  a 
boat  and  often  made  tours  of  several  days,  accom- 
panied only  by  a  Negro  boy,  perhaps  camping  at 
night  and  living  on  salt  pork  and  hard  tack.*  These 
excursions  were  often  of  a  business  nature,  for  the 
purpose  of  inspecting  schools  and  the  work  of  sub- 


*From  one  of  these  tours  he  wrote  home  the  following  reflec- 
tions on  the  political  situation: 

"Let  me  animadvert  briefly  on  the  political  situation.  Repub- 
licans are  increasing  since  the  election  of  Grant,  and  several 
southern  gentlemen  about  here  are  much  more  radical  than  I. 
'When  the  devil  was  sick  the  devil  a  monk  would  be;  when 
the  devil  was  well  the  devil  a  monk  was  he.'  Scores  are  get- 
ting down  off  the  fence  and  are  rushing  wildly  to  the  Republi- 
can lines  and  already  begin  to  talk  of  what  they  have  suffered 
for  their  principles.  I  was  buttonholed  this  evening  by  a 
devoted  radical  lately  converted,  who  has  confidential  talks 
with  darkies  'behind  houses  and  around  corners,'  and  was 
bored  with  an  address  upon  'the  party,'  its  principles  and  its 
meanest  men,  swallowed  without  a  gulp — without  a  wink. 
There  are  good,  noble  dogs  and  '  yaller '  mean  dogs.  So  there 
are  yellow  dogs,  humanely  speaking,  who  roll  over  on  their 
backs  figuratively  and  wag  their  tails  at  the  rulers  of  the  hour." 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau.    J866-J872  145 

ordinates.  He  took  other  tours  on  horseback,  and 
while  riding  through  the  Virginia  pine  woods  often 
caught  glimpses  of  Negro  life  and  character,  and 
received  impressions  of  the  value  of  the  obscure 
work  of  faithful  missionary  teachers,  who  were 
sources  of  true  light  to  their  flocks  in  the  pine  woods, 
that  proved  of  inestimable  value  to  him  in  later  life. 
He  had  not  been  long  at  Hampton  when  a  plan 
which  promised  some  relief  for  the  immediate  needs 
of  the  freedmen  suggested  itself,  and  to  many 
ladies  in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston  he  sent  the 
following  circular  letter,  which  contains  his  first 
mention  of  plans  for  industrial  education : 

"BUREAU  REFUGEES,  FREEDMEN  AND 
ABANDONED  LANDS, 
"FORT  MONROE,  April  16,  1866. 

"  My  Dear  Madam:  I  beg  leave  to  make  a  few  state- 
ments to  you  regarding  the  condition  of  the  colored 
people^in  this  place,  in  the  hope  that  through  your 
injMence  their  destitution  and  suffering  may  be  in  some 
way  relieved. 

"There  are  in  this  vicinity  about  1,700  infirm  or 
helpless  men,  women  and  children  drawing  rations 
from  Government,  most  of  whom,  should  this  aid  be 
withdrawn,  would  suffer  extremely. 

"Yet  nearly  one-half  of  these  are  in  this  dependent 
condition  solely  because  there  is  nothing  for  them  to 
do  and  they  cannot  go  where  there  is  workj  Most  are 
women  who  have  from  one  to  five  children  apiece. 
They  are  generally  able-bodied,  apt  to  learn  and  anxious 
to  get  employment. 

"I  have  thought  that  many  northern  families  might 


146  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

be  willing  to  take  one  of  these  women  with  one  or  two 
children  who  are  old  enough  not  to  be  a  great  care  to 
the  mother  and  are  able  to  do  something  for  them- 
selves; especially  in  the  country,  the  children  might 
make  themselves  very  useful;  they  could  be  bound  out 
for  a  term  of  years  and  thus  make  a  return  for  the 
labor  and  expense  of  their  bringing  up.)  Mothers  will 
not  leave  their  children,  and  in  fact,  from  local  as 
well  as  family  ties,  it  is  very  difficult  to  persuade 
these  women  to  go  North  or  elsewhere.  Yet  they  seem 
anxious  to  work,  and  I  am  confident  that  many  valuable 
servants  can  be  obtained  here.  .  .  .  Their  future 
is  dark,  for  the  bureau  cannot  last  long,  and  then  they 
must  choose  between  starvation  and  crime. 

"Just  now  hundreds  of  able-bodied  men  are  thrown 
out  of  employment  by  the  oyster  law  lately  passed  by 
the  Legislature.  It  requires  taxes  and  bonds,  which 
not  one  oysterman  in  a  hundred  can  comply  with,  and 
the  penalties  of  violation  are  very  severe — they  tax 
them  $6.20  per  annum  per  man,  who  has  also  to  give 
a  bond  of  $500.  ...  I  should  have  mentioned  that 
few  trained  cooks  or  house-servants  can  be  got — that 
class  fled  with  their  owners,  who  abandoned  their  silver 
but  kept  their  domestics.  Those  for  whom  I  plead  are 
mostly  field  hands,  with  but  a  smattering  of  culinary 
training. 

"I  wish  some  society  at  the  North  would  undertake 
to  find  places  for  some  of  them,  also  for  their  children, 
and  then  communicate  with  me. 

"Many  might  prefer  to  employ  men  and  boys.  The 
Negro  is  a  hostler  constitutionally;  he  rides  and  drives 
by  instinct.  A  large  number  of  such  could  be  furnished. 

"The  daytime  of  our  labor  for  the  freed  people  is 
short.  The  North  has  not  as  yet  done  its  full  duty 


The  Ffeedmen's  Bureau*    J866-J872  147 

in  this  matter.  I  will  gladly  cooperate  with  any  who 
are  disposed  to  take  hold  of  this,  and  in  some  way  and 
to  some  extent  we  can,  if  we  will,  rescue  many  from  ills 
that  would  surely  come  to  them. 

"There  is  another  and  most  important  field  for 
philanthropic  effort.  It  is  the  building  up  of  industrial 
schools.  In  order  to  do  this,  a  teacher  should  be  sent 
whose  annual  support  comes  to  about  $300.  She  should 
be  supplied  with  suitable  goods  to  be  made  up  into 
clothing  by  the  colored  girls  and  women.  These  for 
their  work  receive  an  allowance  of  clothes — the  balance 
is  given  to  the  destitute,  or  sold  at  a  low  rate  to  those 
able  to  pay.  In  this  way  a  useful  art  is  taught  (cutting 
and  making  clothing),  well-earned  clothing  is  received, 
the  destitute  are  provided  for  and  are  allowed  to  buy 
cheap  and  excellent  garments. 

"I  consider  this  work  of  great  importance,  but  it  is 
almost  neglected.  Can  you  not  persuade  friends  to 
send  through  the  American  Missionary  Society  of 
New  York  two  or  three  teachers?  This  society  has 
quarters  and  other  comforts  already  provided,  and 
thus  there  is  an  economy  in  sending  through  it."  * 

The  permanent  and  only  solution  of  the  difficul- 
ties that  surrounded  the  ex-slaves  became  daily 
clearer  to  him.  In  an  official  report,  dated  June 
30,  1866,  speaking  of  the  indignation  felt  by  the 
Negroes  at  being  ejected  from  the  lands  they  had 
squatted  upon,  which  were  restoredf  to  their  former 
owners,  he  writes: 

"The  freedmen  hardly  yet  comprehend  the  fact  of 

*As  a  result  of  this  letter  about  i  ,000  Negroes  were  actually 
placed  in  families  near  Cambridge  and  Boston. 

fBy  act  of  Congress. 


148  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the  restoration  of  lands,  and  cry  out  against  the  injustice 
of  it.  They  will  not  as  a  general  rule  be  permitted 
to  remain,  owing  largely  to  their  failure  to  pay  rent. 
.  .  .  Their  inability  or  refusal  to  pay  is  due  to 
improvidence,  or  carelessness,  or  poverty,  or  to  their  not 
comprehending  the  fact  of  restoration.  Their  minds 
are  in  much  confusion,  and  many  have  been  honest  in 
refusing  to  pay.  Many  who  do  not  would  pay  rent  if 
they  believed  it  right  to  do  so.  ...  Freedmen  as  a 
class  are  destitute  of  ambition;  their  complacency  in 
poverty  and  filth  is  a  curse;  discontent  would  lead  to 
determined  effort  and  a  better  life.  Many  cling  to 
Hampton  and  stick  to  Virginia  apparently  to  lay  their 
bones  there  when  they  have  no  more  use  for  them. 
'  Born  and  bred  here,  bound  to  die  here/  is  often  their 
supremely  stupid  and  pitiable  answer  when  asked  to 
go  elsewhere.  Honest  efforts  on  their  behalf  they 
interpret  into  designs  to  reenslave  them.  No  slave- 
catcher  was-  ever  looked  upon  with  more  horror  than  the 
clerk  who  recently  sought  orphans  for  the  farm-school 
at  Washington.  .  .  .  These  wild  notions  are  the 
result  of  ignorance,  to  which  is  mainly  due  the  troubles 
of  the  race. 

"The  education  of  the  freedmen  is  the  great  work  of 
the  day;  it  is  their  only  hope,  the  only  power  that  can 
lift  them  up  as  a  people,  and  I  think  every  encourage- 
ment should  be  given  to  schools  established  for  their 
benefit." 

His  thoughts  were  the  more  readily  directed 
toward  education  for  the  freedmen  because  his 
especial  work,  that  to  which  General  Howard  had 
particularly  assigned  him,  was  the  study  of  exist- 
ing the  limited  educational  opportunities  and 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau,    J866-J872  149 

observing  and  reporting  concerning  the  need  for 
others.* 

There  were  already  many  thriving  little  schools 
in  his  district.  Here  and  there  among  the  pine 
woods  or  sandy  reaches  stood  log  cabins,  whither 
night  after  night  patient  Aunt  Dinahs  and  Uncle 
Toms,  after  laboring  all  day  long,  went  to  pore  over 
spelling  book  and  arithmetic;  or  perhaps  some 
more  pretentious  building  supported  by  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association,  where  bright  little 
colored  children  took  their  first  steps  in  learning. 

The  zeal  of  the  ex-slaves  for  learning  was  one  of 
the  phenomena  of  the  decade  following  the  war, 
and  was  one  of  the  tendencies  least  understood  by 
their  northern  friends.  It  was  thought  to  indicate  a 
well-considered  wish  on  their  part  to  supply  their 
own  mental  deficiencies,  while  in  reality  it  in  general 
merely  indicated  the  imitative  faculty  which  led 
them  to  do  those  things  which  they  had  seen  done 

*He  was  required  by  his  position  as  Superintendent  of  Schools 
to  state  the  location  of  all  those  within  his  district,  the  names 
of  teachers  employed  in  them,  the  number  of  pupils  in  each, 
the  name  of  the  owner  of  the  school-building,  and  of  the  educa- 


tional  society  by   which   it   was   supported.     He   was   further 
required  to  make  original  investigations  tending  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  schools  under  the  direct  auspices  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau,  noting  property  especially  adapted  to  school  use  in 
present   or   future    (in   his  reports  on  this  matter  he  saw  to  it 
that    the    Wood    farm,  where    the    Hampton   Institute  was 
afterward  situated,  always  went  to  Washington  with  the  endorse- 
ment, "Advisable  to  hold"),  and  to  report  what  local  sentiment 
existed  for  or  against  the  education  of  the  freedmen.     With  a 
characteristic  tendency  to  state  the  best  side  of  a  subject,  he-i 
writes  that  there  is  in  some  counties  "a  growing  sentiment  in  1 
favor  of  the  freedmen's  education,"  and  an  increasing  degree  of  ! 
safety  for  Negro  school-houses  and  teachers,  especially  for  those  \ 
of  the  colored  race  who  seemed  to  escape  the  general  prejudice 
against  teachers  of  freedmen. 


150  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

by  their  former  masters,  or  perhaps  a  craving  for  a 
hitherto  contraband  knowledge,  though  without  any 
sufficient  understanding  of  the  nature  of  it.  Many 
sensible  people  believed  that  though  the  Negroes 
might  have  made  or  might  be  making  political 
mistakes,  they  yet  realized  their  own  ignorance  and 
inexperience  and  planned  for  the  overcoming  of 
these  faults.  It  was  thought  that  as  material  aid 
seemed  to  be  their  greatest  present  necessity,  so 
education  defined  as  the  acquiring  of  information 
was  their  chief  future  need;  those  who  believed  in 
them  were  ready  to  advocate  university  training 
for  them,  while  the  skeptical  avowed  that  any 
education  was  too  good  for  a  "  nigger.  "  So,  in  spite 
of  general  interest  in  their  mental  needs,  it  came 
about  that  their  economic  and  moral  faults  were  in 
large  measure  overlooked;  and  the  realization  that 
thrift,  energy  and  high  moral  standards  were  of 
necessity  lacking  in  this  lately  enslaved  race  did 
not  force  itself  upon  most  of  their  northern  friends. 
But  among  those  who  came  closely  in  contact 
with  the  Negroes  were  a  few  who  grasped  the  fact 
that  more  important  to  their  present  or  to  their 
future  than  charitable  relief,  or  even  than  educa- 
tion as  commonly  understood,  was  training  in 
common  morality  and  habits  of  industry  and  fore- 
sight. As  General  Armstrong  said  : 

"The  North  generally  thinks  that  the  great  thing 
is  to  free  the  Negro  from  his  former  owners;  the  real 
thing  is  to  save  him  from  himself.  'Gumption,'  per- 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau*    J866-J872  151 

ception,   guiding  instincts  rather  than   a  capacity  to 
learn,  are  the  advantages  of  our  more  favored  race." 

He  knew  of  the  slave  both  what  the  slave- 
holder knew — that  to  put  a  veneer  of  learning  on  the 
plantation  Negro  would  be  dangerous  nonsense — and 
what  the  northern  friends  of  the  Negro  knew — that 
as  a  human  being  he  deserved  a  fair  chance  in  life. 
He  saw  that  between  the  university  and  no  school 
there  was  a  middle  course  in  which  lay  the  hope 
of  the  race. 

This  clear  vision  was  no  doubt  due  to  his  early 
training  and  observation  and  to  a  still  persisting 
sense  of  aloofness  not  yet  wholly  swallowed  up  in 
the  sense  of  citizenship  in  the  United  States.  This 
feeling  of  separateness  saved  him  not  only  from  the 
errors  of  the  partisan,  but  also  from  many  petty  local 
annoyances  to  which  he  might  often  have  been 
subjected  as  agent  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau. 
The  Southerners  could  respect,  if  they  could  not 
love,  an  official  with  semi-foreign  antecedents,  and 
he  was  never  troubled  by  the  intense  and  burning 
local  antagonism  to  his  work  which  made  the 
situation  of  many  of  his  fellow-workers  almost 
intolerable. 

He  believed  in  the  Freedmen's  Bureau;  he  was 
thoroughly  loyal  to  it  and  to  the  scheme  of  recon- 
struction of  which  it  was  a  part. 

"I  believe  the  continuance  of  the  bureau  desirable," 
he  writes  officially.  "It  is  a  moral  power  that  is 


152  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

greatly  felt ;  it  prevents  more  than  it  forcibly  suppresses. 
The  freedmen  stretch  out  their  arms  to  the  Government 
not  for  ' bread  and  homes'  (as  has  been  said),  but  for 
help  and  justice;  without  the  bureau  they  will  receive 
neither.  Every  material  hope  held  out  by  the  Govern- 
ment has  failed  them;  they  are  not  what  and  where 
they  expected  to  be;  they  did  not  fight  for  this.  The 
bureau  is  their  last  hope;  were  they  anything  better 
than  suppliants  for  what  mercy  they  can  get  they  would 
demand  its  continuance.  For  this  they  universally 
and  earnestly  petition." 

And  again,  relative  to  the  whole  subject  of  recon- 
struction, he  writes  in  a  private  letter: 

"I  am  delighted  with  the  new  reconstruction  bill. 
It  is  based  on  justice  and  truth.  I  am  satisfied  that 
Negro  suffrage,  if  allowed,  will  become  a  fact  without 
trouble  or  noise,  and  it's  coming  soon." 

These  two  years  of  work  for  the  Freedmen' s 
Bureau  were  difficult  and  uncertain.  In  doubt  as  to 
its  continuance  and  as  yet  with  no  other  means  of 
livelihood  at  hand,  Armstrong  half  expected  to  be 
turned  adrift  as  he  had  been  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  But  his  determination,  as  he  wrote  at  this 
time,  was  firm  to  "stick  to  the  darkies  while  there 
is  anything  to  be  done  for  them." 

By  1869  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  began  to  show 
signs  of  dissolution.  Its  courts  were  mercilessly 
criticized  and  at  last  pronounced  unconstitutional. 
An  outcry  from  all  parts  of  the  South  arose  against 
its  authority.  The  North  had  to  confess  that  the 


The  Freedmen's  Bureau.     J866-J872  153 

Negro  had  not  made  such  progress  in  moral  and 
material  conditions  as  had  been  expected,  and 
since  such  improvement  was  the  only  excuse  for 
the  continuance  of  the  extraordinary  powers  of 
the  bureau  its  work  came  to  an  end. 

But  its  educational  department,  which  had 
justified  itself  by  careful  and  successful  work  among 
the  freedmen,  was  continued  until  1872,  when  it, 
too,  was  brought  to  a  close.  Armstrong  worked 
with  this  department  till  the  end,  carrying  it  on 
side  by  side  with  other  and  new  activities. 

The  brief  time  which  Armstrong  actually  passed 
in  the  service  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  is  more 
important  to  the  story  of  his  life  by  reason  of  its 
suggestions  of  his  future  work  and  character  than 
any  other  equally  short  space  of  time.  He  entered 
upon  it  heart-free,  care-free,  with  good  spirits  oozing 
from  every  pore,  expressing  himself  in  his  private 
life  by  joyous  hyperbole  and  unbounded  delight  in 
practical  jokes,  and  after  passing  through  a  restless 
transitional  period  fell  in  love,  found  his  life-work, 
and  emerged  from  it  a  man  sobered  and  settled, 
full-grown  in  his  mental  and  moral  powers.  Of 
these  brief  pregnant  years  he  left  in  his  personal 
letters  slight  record,  though  official  writings 
abound,  and  one  must  mainly  glean  from  his 
outer  activities  what  his  inner  life  must  have  been. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  HAMPTON 

GENERAL  ARMSTRONG  had  not  been  at  Hampton 
more  than  a  twelvemonth  before  there  began  to 
grow  in  his  mind  thoughts  of  an  educational  insti- 
tution for  the  Negroes  different  from  any  he  saw 
there,  and  adapted  especially  to  the  needs  of  the 
ex-slaves.  Such  thoughts  had  long  been  present 
in  his  dreams ;  he  used  to  relate  in  after  years  how, 
lying  on  the  deck  of  the  transport-ship  that  was 
conveying  him  and  his  troops  to  Texas,  he  saw,  as 
it  were  in  a  dream,  the  Hampton  school,  completed 
and  much  as  it  later  actually  became;  twice  again 
had  come  this  vision  of  future  achievement,  so 
that  he  rather  decided  upon  Hampton  as  a  site  for 
such  an  institution  than  conceived  now  for  the  first 
time  the  idea  of  it. 

The  peninsula  of  Old  Point  was  indeed  a  most 
favorable  situation,  both  historically  and  geo- 
graphically. He  wrote  later: 

"Close  at  hand  the  pioneer  settlers  of  America  and 
the  first  slaves  landed  on  this  continent — here  Powhatan 
reigned;  here  the  Indian  was  first  met;  here  the  first 
Indian  child  was  baptized ;  here  freedom  was  first  given 
to  the  slave  by  General  Butler's  famous  contraband 


SAMUEL   CHAPMAN   ARMSTRONG   AT    THE   AGE   OF    28 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  155 

order;  in  sight  of  this  shore  the  battle  of  the  Monitor 
saved  the  Union  and  revolutionized  naval  warfare ;  here 
General  Grant  based  the  operations  of  his  final  cam- 
paign. The  place  was  easily  accessible  by  railroad 
routes  to  the  North  and  to  a  population  of  2,000,000  of 
Negroes,  the  center  of  great  prospective  development, 
and  withal  a  place  most  healthful  and  beautiful  in 
situation." 

As  he  meditated  upon  the  development  of  the 
plan,  the  Hilo  Manual  Labor  School  for  Native 
Hawaiians,*  which  he  had  observed  in  his  boyhood, 
often  occurred  to  his  mind  as  an  example  of  success- 
ful industrial  education  for  an  undeveloped  race, 
and  he  remembered  that  it  turned  out  men  "less 
brilliant  than  the  advanced  schools,  but  more 
solid."  But  he  saw  that  the  cases  of  the  Hawaiian 
and  the  Negro,  though  similar,  were  not  parallel, 
and  their  needs  not  identical.  There  was  a  small 
and  decadent  people :  here  a  large  and  rapidly  grow- 
ing one,  and  a  people  related  in  a  peculiar  way  to 
their  neighbors,  free  from  the  responsibilities  of 
property,  yet  holding  in  many  places  at  least 
potential  political  power. 

Soon  after  the  war,  when  the  southern  States 
made  grants  of  money  sufficient  to  provide  a  sort 
of  schooling  for  blacks  and  whites  separately, 

*  The  Hilo  school  was  a  boarding-school  for  Hawaiian  boys, 
who  paid  their  expenses  by  working  in  carpentry,  housework, 

fardening,  etc.,  in  which  they  received  some  slight  instruction, 
t  was  the  only  school  where  the  Hawaiians  were  expected  to 
work  with  hands  as  well  as  heads,  and  was  a  marked  success. 
The  school  still  exists. 


156  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

white  teachers  from  the  North  took  up  the  work 
of  instructing  the  Negroes;  but  their  efforts  were 
regarded  with  disfavor  by  their  southern  white 
neighbors,  and  they  were  gradually  replaced  by 
Negro  teachers,  who,  as  has  been  said,  met  with  less 
opposition  or  were  even  welcomed. 

In  Virginia,  where  the  school  grants  were  un- 
usually prompt  and  large,  there  was  naturally  a 
great  and  growing  demand  for  young  colored 
people  able  to  teach  their  race,  but  for  several 
years  this  demand  met  with  very  inadequate 
response. 

General  Armstrong  saw  this  need  and  set  about 
to  supply  the  public  schools  of  Virginia  and  the 
South  with  teachers — with  teachers  who  should  be 
leaders  of  their  people  toward  better  moral  and 
physical  as  well  as  mental  habits. 

From  the  first  he  viewed  labor  in  this  institution 
as  a  triple  force: 

(1)  In  its  moral  aspect;  strengthening  the  will  and 
thus  inculcating  a  sense  of  self-reliance  and  inde- 
pendence,   relieving    labor   from  the  odium  which 
slavery  had    cast  upon    it    in    the    minds    of    the 
Negroes,    keeping    strongly    sensual    temperaments 
out  of  mischief,   and  giving    habits  of    regularity. 
"  It  will  make  them  men  and  women  as  nothing  else 
will;    it  is  the  only  way  in  which  to  make  them 
good  Christians,"  he  said. 

(2)  As  a  means  whereby  the  pupils  might  earn 
the  education  that  should  fit  them  to  be  teachers 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  157 

and  leaders  and  earn  it  so  far  as  possible  by  their 
own  work. 

(3)  As  a  means  whereby  the  student  might  learn 
while  in  the  school  how  to  support  himself  after 
graduation  by  the  work  of  his  hands  as  well  as  by 
his  brains,  thus  affording  an  example  of  industry 
to  his  people. 

To  quote  from  a  later  writing  of  his  own: 

"The  thing  to  be  done  was  clear:  to  train  selected 
Negro  youths  who  should  go  out  and  teach  and  lead 
their  people,  first  by  example,  by  getting  land  and 
homes;  to  give  them  not  a  dollar  that  they  could  earn 
for  themselves;  to  teach  respect  for  labor,  to  replace 
stupid  drudgery  with  skilled  hands,  and  to  those  ends 
to  build  up  an  industrial  system  for  the  sake  not  only 
of  self-support  and  intelligent  labor,  but  also  for  the 
sake  of  character." 

The  idea  of  combining  mental  and  manual  train- 
ing is  to-day  made  so  familiar  by  a  public  school 
system  where  they  are  given  more  and  more  in 
conjunction,  by  the  great  endowed  and  the  public 
technical  schools,  and  by  a  system  of  State  agri- 
cultural colleges  extending  throughout  the  Union, 
that  the  fact* of  its  novelty  thirty- two  years  ago 
seems  strange.  But  the  public  mind  was  not  only 
ignorant  of  the  wise  application  of  the  theory,  but 
prejudiced  against  any  trial  of  it.  A  certain 
method  of  mingling  mental  and  manual  work  had 
been,  indeed,  widely  practised,  and  its  results  were 
well  known.  For  some  years  before  Hampton  began, 


158  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

many  institutions,  among  them  Mt.  Holyoke  Sem- 
inary for  women,  Wellesley  College,  and  Oberlin 
College  for  both  sexes,  had  required  the  students 
to  do  a  certain  amount  of  labor,  supposing  that 
their  work  would  help  pay  the  expenses  of  the 
institutions.  One  by  one  these  institutions  gave 
up  the  experiment,  as  the  pupils,  in  many  cases 
young  girls  unused  to  manual  work,  under  the 
strain  of  combined  labor  and  study  so  often  gave 
out  that  public  opinion  would  not  allow  the  contin- 
uance of  the  system.  Oberlin  College  (Ohio)  was 
the  most  prominent  example  of  this,  which  may 
be  called  the  "old-fashioned"  type  of  manual- 
labor  schools.  Already  in  1868  its  experiment 
had  failed  as  a  financial  venture  and  had  fallen 
short  of  the  moral  results  which  were  hoped  for  from 
it.  Armstrong  knew  the  work  of  these  schools 
and  the  judgment  that  had  been  passed  on  them 
by  public  opinion.  He  saw  that  the  difficulties  of 
combining  mental  and  manual  work  were  both 
financial  and  physical;  at  Oberlin  the  farmers  com- 
plained that  the  students'  hearts  were  in  their 
books,  while  the  teachers  lamented  that  the  stu- 
dents were  too  tired  to  study;  no  effective  farm- 
work  could  be  done  with  such  half-hearted  labor, 
while  few  pupils  could  with  equal  zeal  study  and 
toil  with  their  hands.  He  saw  that  the  Negro, 
inured  to  toil,  tough  in  physical  fiber,  and  without 
the  highly  developed  American  nervous  system, 
could  undertake  a  daily  routine  that  would  kill  a 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  159 

New  England  girl ;  he  thought,  too,  that  by  a  certain 
skilful  arrangement  of  work  and  study  he  could 
avoid  the  failure  of  either  farm  or  book  work.  As 
the  bulk  of  the  Negroes  were  unfit  for  any  form  of 
industrial  work  other  than  farming,  they  must  be 
placed  in  a  school  on  a  farm  where  they  could  plow 
and  plant  as  they  were  used  to  doing.  So  he  planned 
and  thought  as  he  worked  in  his  office  or  rode  on 
horseback  over  the  sandy  roads  of  his  little  king- 
dom during  the  first  year  of  his  stay  at  Hampton. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  year  1867  he  wrote  to 
the  American  Missionary  Association,  as  the  greatest 
financial  power  interested  in  Negro  education, 
suggesting  that  this  was  the  spot  for  a  "permanent 
and  great  educational  work,"  and  recommending 
that  a  valuable  estate — "Little  Scotland" — com- 
prising 159  acres,  fronting  on  Hampton  River  and 
now  come  on  the  market,  be  purchased.  The  asso- 
ciation promptly  and  cheerfully  acceded  to  his 
request,  and  it  was  decided  that  a  school  should  be 
placed  there  under  the  auspices  of  the  American 
Missionary  Association. 

"Not  expeq^ing  to  have  charge,  but  only  to  help,  I 
was  surprised  one  day,"  wrote  Armstrong,  "to  receive 
a  letter  from  Secretary  E.  P.  Smith,  of  the  American 
Missionary  Association,  stating  that  the  man  selected 
for  the  place  had  declined  and  asking  if  I  would  take  it. 
I  replied,  'Yes.'  Till  then  my  future  had  been  blind; 
it  had  only  been  clear  that  there  was  a  work  to  be  done 
for  the  ex-slave  and  where  and  how  to  do  it." 


160  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Used  to  planning  far  in  advance  of  the  present, 
his  brain  was  already  actively  devising  ways  in 
which  money  to  pay  for  buildings  and  improve- 
ments could  be  procured.  He  felt  sure  that  the 
people  of  the  North  would  support  a  wise  work 
for  the  freedmen;  that  the  American  Missionary 
Association  would  help  him;  and  that  the  Freed- 
men's  Bureau,  through  General  Howard,  would 
contribute  something  from  its  building  fund.  He 
thought,  too,  that  the  farm,  by  raising  vegetables 
for  the  northern  market,  would  be  a  source  of 
profit  and  furnish,  besides,  almost  all  the  supplies 
that  would  be  necessary  for  the  school. 

These  problems  of  support  were  still  for  the 
future;  for  the  present  the  full  purchase  money  for 
the  Wood  farm — " Little  Scotland" — was  not  yet 
forthcoming.  The  American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion had  indeed  authorized  its  purchase,  but  were 
not  prepared  to  pay  the  whole  sum,  $19,000,  and 
relied  on  the  young  man  at  whose  word  the  purchase 
was  made  to  help  them  in  raising  it.  While  the 
matter  was  thus  hanging  in  the  air,  a  gentleman 
from  Pittsburg,  Honorable  Josiah  King,  execu- 
tor of  the  A  very  estate,  which  included  a  legacy  of 
$250,000  for  Negro  education,  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  association  paid  a  visit  to  Hampton.  He 
was  taken  to  a  high  building  in  the  vicinity,  was 
struck  with  the  adaptability  of  the  neighborhood 
to  institutional  purposes,  and  shortly  paid,  through 
the  American  Missionary  Association,  the  $10,000 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  161 

which  was  still  needed.  To  this  visit  of  Mr.  King 
Armstrong  referred  in  later  years  as  the  first  step 
toward  the  foundation  of  the  Hampton  Institute. 

The  estate  just  purchased  included  two  good 
brick  buildings  on  the  water-front,  the  mansion 
house,  where  Armstrong  had  lived  since  his  coming 
to  Hampton,  and  the  flour  mill  of  the  plantation, 
occupied  since  the  war  by  Negro  families.  There 
was  upon  the  estate,  back  from  the  water's  edge,  a 
great  triangular  hospital  building,  formerly  a  United 
States  hospital,  including  eight  or  ten  acres  of 
ground  within  its  walls.  To  the  right  of  the  mansion 
house  stretched  a  salt  marsh,  ending  in  a  small 
tidal  river  and  bounded  by  a  sandy  knoll  on  the 
water-front.  Back  from  the  water  the  bulk  of  the 
estate  stretched  in  sandy  level,  its  monotony 
varied  by  a  few  lanes  of  Negro  quarters,  dotted 
with  hospital  barracks,  new  and  old  (one  dating 
even  from  the  Revolutionary  War),  and  bounded 
on  the  right  by  a  national  cemetery  where  6,000 
troops  were  buried.  The  site  had  many  advan- 
tages: the  two  solid  buildings  offered  housing  for 
classes  and  teachers,  the  barracks  afforded  material 
that  could  be  used  again  in  construction,  and  the 
Hampton  River,  easily  navigable  to  this  point, 
flowed  past  the  grounds  and  gave  good  drainage. 

After  the  purchase  of  a  farm  to  provide  supplies 
and  give  opportunity  for  student  labor,  the  next 
step  was  to  provide  housing  for  the  future  pupils, 
and  on  October  i,  1867,  ground  was  broken  for 


1 62  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the  first  temporary  buildings  of  the  Hampton 
Institute.  The  American  Missionary  Association 
sent  two  carpenters  to  put  up  some  cheap  wooden 
structures,  the  material  to  be  taken  from  the  old 
hospital  barracks. 

Mr.  Albert  Howe,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  con- 
struction, writes: 

"  After  some  difficulties  we  put  two  wards  together, 
making  a  long  one-story  building,  250  feet  long,  with 
belfry  in  the  middle;  next  to  it  a  small  kitchen,  where 
'Uncle  Tom'  cooked  for  the  school.  .  .  .  Once 
General  Armstrong,  pointing  to  a  knoll  (or  bluff) 
where  Academic  Hall  now  stands,  said:  'That's  just 
the  place  for  an  academic  building;  don't  take  too  much 
pains  with  these  barracks;  three  years  will  demonstrate 
whether  we  can  make  teachers  out  of  these  colored 
people;  then  we  shall  make  some  substantial,  lasting 
buildings.  That  will  be  the  spot  for  the  Academic 
Hall,  and  just  here  a  building  for  girls  and  a  general 
dining-room — we'll  call  it  Virginia  Hall.'  He  gave 
them  the  very  names  they  bear  now.  Then  he  pointed 
out  sites  for  boys'  cottages — all  just  as  you  see  it  now. 
I  sat  on  a  log  and  looked  at  him — I  thought  he  was  a 
visionary — it  all  came  to  pass." 

As  early  as  1867  Armstrong  foresaw  the  coming 
need  of  friends  in  the  North  and,  granted  a  brief 
leave  of  absence,  took  several  trips  thither,  quietly 
getting  himself  introduced  to  a  few  influential  people 
here  and  there.  His  work  for  the  Negroes  on  the 
peninsula  was  not  unknown,  and  his  project  of 
starting  a  normal  school  to  train  colored  teachers 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  163 

aroused  interest  wherever  it  was  heard  of.  In  a 
letter  to  his  mother  he  thus  describes  one  of  these 
early  trips: 

"I  can't  complain  of  not  being  appreciated  in  this 
country.  I  wish  you  could  read  the  warm,  friendly 
words  before  me  of  Miss  Anna  Lowell,  sister  of  the  noble 
General  Charles  Lowell,  who  fell  in  the  Shenandoah. 
We  have  been  many  months  working  together  and  a 
true  friendship  has  sprung  up — or  see  the  splendid 
Woolsey  family  of  New  York,  who  have  been  so  kind 
to  me.  They  are  full  of  interest  in  my  work,  are  helping 
me  much,  and  they  have  a  fine  army  record.  Then,  if 
I  am  not  bragging  too  much,  the  Emersons  of  Concord 
and  Higginsons  of  Cambridge  seem  to  remember  me 
kindly.  .  .  .  But  enough  to  show  you  that  I  am 
well  guarded,  heartily  encouraged,  most  kindly  treated, 
extravagantly  complimented,  and  am  now  prospering 
finely  with  my  normal  school. 

"This  being  in  the  world  is  everything;  it  gives  a 
man  manner,  and  as  Emerson  says  most  truly,  '  Manner 
is  power.'  My  experience  shows  that  in  the  quickness 
of  modern  life  is  the  necessity  of  instant  action  in  many 
cases.  'The  first  step  counts,'  and  the  success  of  the 
first  step  depends  on  how  it  is  done;  that  is  often  well 
or  ill,  according  to  manner.  The  first  thing  is  to  be 
right  and  true.  The  second  thing  is  to  be  transparent, 
so  that  the  right  and  true  in  one  shall  shine  out;  but 
that  is  manner,  and  can  only  be  reached  by  the  highest 
culture." 

A  flattering  offer  was  made  to  him  in  the  fall  of 
1867,  which  he  describes  in  the  same  letter: 

"But  I  must  tell  you  about  my  visit  to  Washington. 


164  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Some  days  ago   I  received  a  telegram  from  General 
Howard  to  report  in  person  to  him  at  once.     Ignorant 
of  his  intention,  I  proceeded  without  delay  to  his  head- 
quarters.    It  seems  he  wished  me  to  take  charge  of  the 
Howard  University  at  Washington — his  pet  enterprise. 
There  are  sixty  acres  of  land,  splendidly  located,  with 
a  commanding  view,  and  two  large  buildings  of  artificial 
stone  going  up,  one  for  the  students'  rooms  and  one 
for   recitation,    lecture,    library,    etc.     They   will   look 
splendidly.     Close  by  is  General  Howard's  new  home. 
The  locality  will  be  the  most  stylish  in  the  city.     The 
university  is   intended   to   be   central   for   (especially, 
though  not  solely)  the  colored  youth  of  the  country; 
to  be,  if  Howard  has  his  way,  the  largest  educational 
enterprise  of  its  kind    (i.e.,  for  freedmen)    in  the  land. 
At  present  and  for  a  few  years  the  labor  will  be  all 
preparatory,  as  the  freed  children  are  not  at  all  advanced. 
I  was  desired  and  very  urgently  and  persistently  asked 
to  take  hold  of  this  institution,  become  its  head,  and 
make  out  of  it  what  is  possible.     I  met  the  trustees 
twice,   looked  over  the   whole   ground   carefully,    and 
refused  for  two  reasons.     First,  I  was  in  honor  bound 
to  the  American  Missionary  Association  that  had  so 
warmly   supported  me   here   and   carried   out    all   my 
plans.     Secondly,  I  consider  that  my  own  enterprise 
here  has  better  possibilities  (is  more  central  with  refer- 
ence   to    freedmen    and    has    important    advantages). 
„     .     .     Howard  is   one  of  the  noblest,   bravest   and 
kindest  of  men.     He  has  used  me  remarkably  well." 

The  letter  continues: 

"After  refusing  General  Howard's  offer,  I  took  care  to 
urge  my  own  scheme;  returning  through  Richmond,  had 
an  interview  with  General  Brown,  who  has  given  up  his 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  165 

York  River  affair,  has  come  over  to  my  side  and  is 
going  to  help  my  institution.  We  are  ahead  and  alone. 
The  ground  is  new.  The  enterprise  is  as  full  of  bad 
possibilities  as  of  good  ones;  most  embarrassing  condi- 
tions will  occur  from  time  to  time;  all  is  experiment,  but 
all  is  hopeful.  The  success  of  this  will  be  the  guarantee 
of  a  dozen  more  like  it  in  the  South.  I  have  to  face 
the  fact  that  a  manual-labor  school  never  yet  succeeded 
in  the  North,  but  the  powers  of  prayer  and  faith  are 
strong — in  these  we  will  conquer. 

"I  am  in  the  midst  of  the  battle  now.  Worked  very 
hard.  Just  about  to  open.  Applicants  are  coming 
forward  encouragingly.  Truly  the  pillar  of  cloud  is 
before  us.  Every  serious  difficulty  seems  to  be  removed. 
What  can  resist  the  pressure  of  steady,  energetic 
pressure,  the  force  of  a  single  right  idea  pushed  month 
after  month  in  its  natural  development  ?  If  I  succeed 
it  will  be  because  of  carefully  selecting  a  thing  to  do 
and  the  doing  of  it.  Few  men  comprehend  the  deep 
philosophy  of  one-man  power.  As  a  soldier  I  would 
always  fight  on  the  principle  of  all  great  warriors, 
'concentration  and  celerity.'  As  an  educator,  as  any- 
thing, I  would  apply  that  same  always  sound  principle, 
adding  to  it  with  reference  to  enemies  or  any  other 
obstacle,  'Divide  and  be  conquered.'" 

The  new  school  was  to  open  with  the  spring  of 
1868,  and  Armstrong  looked  forward  cheerfully  to  its 
financial  prospects.  General  Howard  was  executing 
a  skilful  flank  movement  in  his  dealings  with  Con- 
gress for  the  purpose  of  adding  to  the  construction 
fund  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau,  which  he  describes 
as  follows: 


1 66  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"In  Washington  there  was  a  great  population  of 
colored  refugees — contrabands,  as  they  were  called. 
They  had  flocked  there  as  to  the  source  of  light  and 
love.  They  were  in  a  deplorable  condition,  with  almost 
nothing  to  eat  or  wear.  Congress  gave  them  soup,  now 
and  then  clothing.  It  was  a  great  question  what  to  do 
with  them  or  for  them.  I  thought  it  would  be  best 
to  transport  every  able-bodied  man  and  woman  to  some 
place  where  they  could  get  labor.  I  sent  off  10,000 
from  Washington  alone. 

"  Now,  though  the  idea  of  education  or  any  legislation 
or  work  to  elevate  them  did  not  commend  itself  to 
Congress  or  find  any  favor,  the  idea  of  transporting 
was  immensely  popular  at  once.  *  Transportation ! 
Transportation!  That's  the  idea;  transport  them,  of 
course,  anywhere.  If  to  Africa,  so  much  the  better.' 
So  then  I  got  large  appropriations  for  that  purpose 
repeatedly,  as  often  as  I  asked  for  them,  without  any 
trouble,  much  more  than  I  asked.  But  a  great  many 
were  glad  to  go  and  pay  their  own  way  in  part.  So  I 
reduced  the  population  sufficiently  without  the  least 
trouble,  and  when  it  was  done  there  remained  a  very 
large  surplus  from  the  appropriations.  I  simply  asked 
Congress  that  I  might  transfer  what  funds  were  left  to 
educational  purposes,  and  the  request  was  granted 
without  much  thought  of  what  they  were  doing.  So 
Hampton  got  its  plum  and  all  the  other  institutions 
were  started,  all  as  the  result  of  that  quiet  flanking 
operation."  * 

Out  of  this  fund  Armstrong  expected  a  grant 
of  $20,000. 

As  the  year  1868  opened  he  hastened  his  efforts 

*In  an  address  delivered  at  Hampton  Institute  in  1889. 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  167 

to  be  ready  for  pupils  in  April.  The  one-story  bar- 
rack, built  of  old  lumber,  was  completed,  the  flour 
mill  repaired,  and  crops  planted  to  mature  in  June 
in  time  for  shipment  to  the  northern  market. 

On  April  i,  1868,  school  was  opened  with  an 
attendance  of  fifteen  pupils  and  a  teacher  and  a 
matron,  both  employed  by  the  American  Mission- 
ary Association.  A  few  days  after  the  opening 
of  school,  April  5th,  he  wrote  to  his  mother: 

"Things  here  look  well.  My  machine  has  just 
commenced  to  run.  The  anxiety  and  patient  effort  it 
has  cost  are  great,  but  I  am  now  satisfied  with  it  all. 
.  .  .  The  buildings  I  have  erected  and  repaired  are 
insured  for  $15,000,  less  than  their  real  value." 

By  April  26th  there  were  thirty  pupils  in  the 
school,  doing  manual  work  in  the  morning  and 
studying  in  the  afternoons  and  evenings.  The  boys 
worked  on  the  farm,  the  girls  at  housework;  three 
girls  supported  themselves  by  working  at  a  trade 
learned  before  coming.  The  pupils  worked  in 
squads,  one  squad  working  two  days  in  the  week 
and  studying  the  other  four;  they  were  paid  for 
their  work,  not  in  cash,  but  in  credit  on  the  books  of 
the  school.  Armstrong  hoped  by  this  plan  to  obtain 
sets  of  men  who  should  be  steadily  employed  at 
labor  and  study  for  regular  alternate  periods,  so 
that  study  should  not  suffer  from  daily  interrup- 
tion as  it  did  at  Oberlin,  where  part  of  every  day 
was  spent  on  the  farm,  and  farm  work  should  not 


1 68  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

suffer  from  having  laborers  whose  minds  were  bent 
on  their  books.     Students  were  paid  a  wage,  "up 
to  the  point  of  encouragement,"  as  he  said,  of  8  cents 
per  hour;  whereas  at  Oberlin  only  4  to  7  cents  for 
men  and  3  to  4  cents  for  women  was  paid.      Board 
was    $10    a    month,    of    which    half,    or   in    case 
of  extreme  want  the  whole,  could  be  worked  out. 
Those  who  worked  out  the  entire  sum  were  allowed 
to  attend  school  at  night,  thus  fitting  themselves 
mentally  at  the  same  time  as  financially  to  enter  the 
day  school  later.     If  a  student  wished  to  earn  his 
way  by  working  at    some    industry    other    than 
what  was  provided  by  the  school,  he  was  allowed 
to  do  so.     No  student  was  expected  to  pay  for  his 
tuition,  a  burden  which  would  have  been  too  great 
for  any  Negro  to  carry  in  those  early  times.     The 
expense  of  tuition,  estimated  at  $70  a  year,  was 
borne  by  the  management. 

With  all  the  care  and  time  incidental  to  getting 
this  organization  in  running  order,  Armstrong  was 
still  called  on  to  perform  his  duties  as  Freedmen's 
Bureau  agent,  for  the  summer  of  1868  was  not  yet 
over.  In  fact,  had  it  not  been  for  the  salary 
received  from  the  Bureau  until  1872  he  could 
not  have  carried  on  the  work  of  starting  Hampton 
at  all  through  these  unsettled  years,  for  he  did  not 
take  even  the  salary  allowed  him  out  of  the  school 
funds,  saying: 

"Some  of  my  friends  don't  like  this,  but  they  little 
know  the  way  of  successful  leadership.  The  rebel  offi- 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  169 

cers  fought  without  pay,  and  why  should  not  I  in  a  ten 
times  better  cause?  ...  I  have  so  far  had  every- 
thing needed  for  personal  comfort,  yes,  a  jolly  good  time 
on  the  whole,  with  an  occasional  grind  and  sometimes 
an  impecunious  sensation." 

In  June,  1878,  he  wrote: 

"However  it  [the  bureau]  goes,  I  am  too  firmly 
anchored  here  to  be  moved  or  greatly  disappointed  by 
its  failure.  The  chances  are  that  my  life-work  is  here, 
and  I  shall  not  regret  it." 

He  continues: 

"  It  is  now  spring  harvest,  and  we  shall  gather  $2,000 
worth  of  vegetables  which  the  students  have  raised. 
They  will  be  sold  in  New  York  and  Baltimore.  Just 
sold  a  pea  crop  for  $900 — half  of  it  clear  profit." 

The  establishment  of  a  profitable  vegetable  farm 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  by  Armstrong  in  a 
double  light. 

"It  is  my  intention,"  he  wrote,  "to  wait  till  another 
year's  results  are  in  and  when,  if  successful,  I  shall  have 
mastered  a  highly  profitable  business,  will  know  all 
about  it,  and  of  course  be  able  to  do  a  second  time  what 
I  have  done  once.  In  that  case  I  shall  make  an  effort 
to  buy  and  establish  a  'truck'  farm  of  my  own,  thus 
having  something  to  fall  back  upon  and  also  being 
known  as  a  landowner,  which  will  make  my  position 
socially  far  more  pleasant  and  dignified  and  my  political 
chances  greatly  improved.  Nothing  is  so  bad  for  one 
in  political  life  as  to  be  dependent  entirely  upon  his 


17°  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

office.  His  opponents  know  it  is  his  weak  point  and 
consequently  fling  his  poverty  in  the  faces  of  his  friends, 
and  his  friends  are  apt  to  exact  all  sorts  of  things  from 
him  because  he  is  dependent  upon  their  favor.  Here 
in  the  South,  where  nearly  all  northern  men  are  poor, 
it  is  a  powerful  thing,  a  great  foothold,  to  be  supposed 
even  to  be  worth  something." 

During  the  summer  of  1868  he  made  another 
northern  trip  by  special  order  of  General  Howard, 
in  order  to  visit  the  agricultural  and  normal  schools 
of  the  North.  Since  his  last  trip  his  position  had 
become  more  assured,  and  he  was  recognized  as  an 
official  representative  of  the  educational  work 
done  by  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  and  by  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association. 

He  felt  while  on  this  trip  how  dear  to  him  the 
work  at  Hampton  was  becoming,  full  of  perplexity 
though  it  often  was.  He  writes  from  Boston  : 

"I  have  been  over  the  'Athens  '  but  wouldn't  live 
here  for  anything.  I  am  glad  I'm  on  the  outposts  doing 
frontier  duty  and  pioneer  work,  for  the  South  is  a 
heathen  land  and  Hampton  is  on  the  borders  thereof. 
I  see  my  whole  nature  calls  me  to  the  work  that  is  done 
there — to  lay  foundations  strong  and  not  do  frescoes 
and  fancy  work." 

The  fall  term  opened  prosperously.  A  few  days 
after  its  beginning  he  wrote: 

"This  is  no  easy  machine  to  run  wisely,  rightly. 
The  darkies  are  so  full  of  human  nature  and  have  to 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  171 

be  most  carefully  watched  over.  They  are  apt  to  be 
possessed  with  strange  notions.  To  simply  control 
them  is  one  thing,  but  to  educate,  to  draw  them  out,  to 
develop  the  germ  of  good  possibilities  into  firm  fruition, 
requires  the  utmost  care.  Eternal  vigilance  will  be  the 
price  of  success.  A  very  good  and  noble  lady,  Mrs. 
Griggs,  of  New  York,  has  just  given  $1,000  to  the 
Institute.  Work  is  going  ahead.  I  have  just  secured 
for  our  farm  work  an  old  hospital  worth  several  hundred 
dollars.  ...  I  am  driving  things  ahead  as  fast  as 
possible  and  hope  with  a  well-appointed  farm  next 
year  to  make  good  profits.  I  have  just  been  refitting 
our  home.*  This  house  is  a  brick  thing,  rather  ungainly 
from  the  exterior,  but  within  it  is  quite  pleasant  and 
comfortable  since  the  repairs.  Outside  there  is  a  wide 
piazza,  about  fourteen  feet  wide  and  forty  feet  long, 
from  which  there  is  a  pleasant  view  and  where  it  is 
pleasant  to  promenade." 

The  late  fall  and  early  winter  were  spent  in  the 
search  for  a  farmer  who  should  be  scientific  enough 
to  command  respect  and  practical  enough  to  make 
the  farm  profitable.  The  farm  was  at  that  time 
considered  the  most  completely  appointed  in  the 
State,  and  Armstrong  was  ambitious  to  make  it  the 
best  and  most  scientifically  managed  in  the  South. 
He  looked  as  far  north  as  New  Jersey  for  his  man, 
writing : 

"This  is  an  anxious  sort  of  a  trip  for  me,  because  so 
much — our  whole  financial  success — depends  on  my 
choice  of  the  right  man.  I  only  now  begin  to  compre- 

*Referring  to  the  old  mansion  house,  where  he  lived  and 
which  he  expected  to  make  his  permanent  home. 


172  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

hend  the  difficulty  of  getting  the  right  men  for  this 
work.  I  see  why  most  institutions  and  enterprises 
fail.  There  are  lots  of  men,  but  few  who  are  good  for 
anything.  Many  men  can  talk,  can  shine — few  can  do 
things." 

He  succeeded  in  finding  the  right  man,  who  abso- 
lutely refused  his  offer,  but  eventually  came  to 
Hampton — a  change  of  heart  not  at  all  uncommon 
under  Armstrong's  magnetic  determination  to  win 
his  chosen  assistants. 

The  year  1869  proved  to  be  a  most  eventful 
one.  Armstrong  had  determined  on  the  erection 
of  an  expensive  and  elaborate  brick  building  for 
the  class  work  at  Hampton,  to  be  called  Academic 
Hall.  He  received  from  General  Howard,  as  he 
had  hoped,  the  sum  of  $20,000  toward  it,  and  in 
order  that  the  structure  might  be  a  tasteful  one 
secured  the  services  of  Richard  M.  Hunt  as  archi- 
tect. The  bricks  were  to  be  made  on  the  grounds, 
an  industry  which  was  soon  in  full  operation,  the 
students  making  several  thousand  bricks  a  day. 
He  told  the  American  Missionary  Association  that 
he  would  not  depend  on  them  for  a  cent  of  the 
money  for  its  erection,  and  looked  forward  to  a 
struggle  to  raise  the  $13,000  which,  with  the  $20,000 
already  secured,  would,  he  thought,  cover  the  cost. 

September  2oth  he  wrote: 

"This  has  been  an  interesting  day.  The  mason  from 
New  York  has  come  and  there  is  the  bustle  of  prepara- 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  173 

tion.  To-morrow  the  first  bricks  are  to  be  laid.  Between 
them  and  the  last — between  the  first  stroke  of  the 
mason's  trowel  and  the  last — what  a  world  of  anxiety 
and  labor  there  will  be !  The  erecting  of  this  building 
is  the  most  responsible  and  conspicuous  and  fateful 
single  executive  act  of  my  life.  The  failure  of  it  would 
be  a  crushing  blow  to  body  and  mind.  I  could  not 
bear  failure.  The  success  of  it  will  be  only  an  inspiration 
to  other  fields  of  effort,  in  what  directions  I  cannot  tell, 
but  they  will  be  opened  when  it  is  time  to  enter  them. 
To-day  two  more  masons  went  to  work  and  there  are 
now  twelve  of  them  laying  bricks.  We  put  up  about 
20,000  bricks  a  day.  Truly  they  say  the  building 
ground  is  a  busy  place.  I  only  pay  $3  a  day,  and, 
what  is  unknown  in  this  country,  I  pay  white  and  black 
just  the  same  when  the  work  is  the  same.  It  pleases 
the  darkies,  but  the  white  masons  don't  like  it  much. 
They  have  an  idea  that  the  institute  is  rich  and  think 
it  hard  if  we  don't  give  them  more  than  anybody  else. 
I  have  to  be  supremely  indifferent  and  tell  them  to  go 
wherever  I  like,  though  I  should  hate  to  have  them 
leave.  Half  colored  and  half  white  is  the  character 
of  my  gang;  they  get  along  in  millennial  peace.  Backy* 
and  I  rather  enjoy  the  plotting  of  these  fellows;  they 
can't  get  very  far  ahead  of  us. 

"Two  hundred  and  fifty  barrels  of  cement  arrived 
from  New  York  this  morning  and  had  to  be  unloaded 
at  our  wharf.  What  a  singular  providence  it  is  that 
we  have  here  everything  we  need !  This  wharf,  that 
is  of  such  service  and  economy  to  us,  was  built 
just  at  the  close  of  the  war  for  the  purpose  of 
landing  wounded  soldiers  more  conveniently  and 
comfortably,  but  was  never  quite  completed.  It  is 
just  what  we  want." 

*His  brother  Baxter. 


174  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

An  incident  in  connection  with  the  erection  of 
Academic  Hall  is  recorded  by  Doctor  Strieby,  the 
senior  secretary  of  the  American  Missionary  Asso- 
ciation. He  and  several  other  men  of  influence 
and  character,  among  them  Doctor  Mark  Hopkins, 
the  venerable  president  of  Williams  College,  and 
General  Garfield,  were  invited  to  visit  Hampton  in 
July,  1869,  to  consult  with  General  Armstrong 
about  his  plans  and  about  the  situation  of  the 
new  building.  Most  of  them  thought  that  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Chesapeake  Female  Seminary  (now  the 
main  building  of  the  Veterans'  Home  at  Hampton), 
would  be  wiser  than  the  erection  of  a  new  building, 
with  all  the  risks  involved.  Armstrong,  however, 
opposed  this  plan  strongly,  fearing  the  traces  of 
disease  that  might  linger  in  the  building  as  a  heritage 
from  its  use  as  a  hospital  in  war  time,  and  perceiv- 
ing that  the  level  flats  stretching  along  its  water- 
front would  make  drainage  difficult  and  expensive. 

"We  all  met  on  the  veranda  of  the  General's  house," 
says  Doctor  Strieby.  "We  looked  the  matter  over. 
I  said,  'That  is  the  thing  to  do — to  buy  the  seminary 
building.'  General  Armstrong  was  inflexibly  opposed 
to  it  (for  one  reason  that  it  would  prevent  the  erection  of 
a  more  suitable  and  lasting  building) .  At  last  President 
Mark  Hopkins  took  me  to  one  side  and  said,  'We  had 
better  let  this  young  man  have  his  way.'  And  we  did." 

So  the  building  was  placed  where  Armstrong 
had  determined,  some  two  years  before,  that  it 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  175 

should  be  placed,  and  by  the  commencement  of 
the  fall  term  of  1870  was  in  order  for  use. 

The  letters  to  his  mother  grew  briefer  and  less 
frequent  from  this  time,  the  beginning  of  his  active 
work  at  Hampton ;  but  letters  to  a  new  correspond- 
ent give  for  a  time  in  equal  detail  his  thoughts 
and  hopes  for  his  work.  The  recipient  of  these 
confidences  was  Miss  Emma  Dean  Walker,  of  Stock- 
bridge,  Massachusetts,  to  whom  he  was  married  in 
October,  1869.  Hereafter  for  their  married  life  of  nine 
years  the  deepest  expressions  of  thought  and  feeling 
are  to  be  found  in  his  letters  to  her. 

Emma  Walker  was  a  young  girl  of  rare  charm 
of  person  and  character,  and  brought  to  her  new 
home  at  Hampton  a  spirit  of  devotion  to  her 
husband's  ideals  which  was  of  inestimable  delight 
to  him.  A  frail  physique  prevented  active  service 
on  her  part,  and  they  were  constantly  separated, 
both  by  the  needs  of  the  Hampton  school  for 
money  and  by  her  own  wanderings  in  search 
of  health.  But  in  spite  of  drawbacks  the 
married  life  of  these  two,  united  by  a  singu- 
larly close  devotion  to  each  other  and  to  high 
ideals  of  unselfish  living,  was  full  of  sympathy 
and  joy. 

Having  now  a  home  and  family,  Armstrong's 
thoughts  turned  longingly  sometimes  toward  the 
possibility  of  securing  a  more  fixed  income  and 
position.  He  considered  running  for  Congress,  but 
soon  gave  up  definitely  and  permanently  ideas  of 


176  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

a  political  advancement,  writing  to  his  mother  as 
follows : 

"I  have  concluded  to  give  up  all  Congressional  plans 
and  to  stick  to  my  work  here.  This  is  not  because  my 
political  chances  are  not  good.  They  are,  I  suppose, 
excellent;  but  I  like  less  and  less  this  breaking  off  one 
thing  and  going  into  another,  and  besides  the  tendencies 
and  dangers  of  politics  I  greatly  fear.  I  am  more  and 
more  disgusted  with  all  kinds  of  public  life.  There's 
more  worry  and  bother  about  it  than  the  positions  are 
worth.  It  has  ceased  to  attract." 

He  applied  during  the  fall  for  the  position  of 
State  assessor  of  taxes,  to  which  a  good  salary  was 
attached,  but  failed  to  get  it.  The  conclusion  must 
have  forced  itself  upon  him  that  the  work  he  had 
chosen  was  his  for  better  or  worse,  and  was,  more- 
over, a  jealous  mistress,  to  be  cherished  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  interests. 

The  final  step  in  the  beginnings  of  Hampton, 
and  one  which  marked  the  opening  of  a  new  period 
in  its  development,  was  an  act  passed  by  the  General 
Assembly  of  Virginia  June  4,  1870,  incorporating 
the  "Hampton  Normal  and  Agricultural  Institute, 
for  the  instruction  of  youth  in  the  various  common 
schools,  academic  and  industrial  branches,  the 
best  methods  of  teaching  same  and  best  mode  of 
practical  industry  in  its  application  to  agricul- 
ture and  the  mechanic  arts." 

The  breadth  of  scope  shown  by  this  charter, 
including  every  race,  industry  and  method,  indi- 


The  Beginnings  of  Hampton  177 

cates  clearly  that  the  founder  realized  the  possibil- 
ities of  his  school  and  wished  to  hamper  its  future 
by  no  limitations.  But  the  school  was  not  incor- 
porated by  the  Virginia  Legislature  without  con- 
siderable discussion,  and  many  were  the  busy  days 
passed  by  Armstrong  that  spring  of  1870  in  the  hot 
Richmond  lobbies,  using  his  persuasive  powers  on 
the  conservative  ex-Confederates.  It  is  greatly  to 
the  credit  of  his  eloquence,  and  a  tribute  also  to 
their  real  liberality,  that  they  should  have  passed 
such  an  act  at  a  time  when  hot  passions  still  seethed 
about  every  southern  legislative  hall. 

April  30,  1870,  he  wrote  to  his  friend  and  adviser, 
General  J.  F.  B.  Marshall,  who  soon  became  treas- 
urer of  the  Hampton  school: 

"Our  act  has  not  yet  passed  the  House.  There  has 
been  trouble  in  the  matter  of  making  'no  distinction  of 
color.'  The  conservatives  are  opposed  to  such  a 
liberal  basis.  They  will  consent  to  incorporate  'with- 
out distinction  of  color'  only  on  the  ground  that  a 
large  portion  of  the  money  already  granted  to  this  in- 
titute  has  been  given  on  express  condition  that  all 
should  be  admitted  without  distinction  of  color.  I 
have  been  compelled  to  obtain  papers  to  prove  this  fact 
— have  just  done  so,  and  probably  we'll  be  all  right 
shortly." 

It  was  an  early  dream  of  his,  never  realized 
except  in  the  case  of  one  struggling  family  of  poor 
whites  to  whom  he  gave  shelter  and  a  job,  that  he 
could  directly  help  the  whites  of  the  South  by  giving 


178  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong1 

them  an  industrial  education  at  Hampton.  He 
foresaw  the  coming  lack  among  them  of  skilled 
labor,  saying  mournfully,  "The  whites  have  no 
apprentices!"  and  sincerely  wished  to  aid  them 
in  their  economic  distress. 


PART  II 

ACCOMPLISHMENT 


GENERAL   ARMSTRONG— 1880 


CHAPTER  VII 
AT  HAMPTON.     1870-1890 

THE  story  of  the  ensuing  twenty  years,  1870-1890, 
is  a  story  of  struggle  for  the  existence  and  growth 
of  the  Hampton  school.  Of  this  period  there  is 
little  to  be  learned  from  Armstrong's  personal 
letters;  his  extended  activity  left  him  no  time  for 
the  leisurely  letter  writing  of  earlier  years.  In 
formal  reports  and  public  speeches,  and  in  a  few 
letters  that  touch  slightly  on  the  current  events  of 
his  life,  are  to  be  found  indications  of  his  point  of 
view  on  various  matters ;  but  of  the  story  of  his  life 
as  told  in  his  own  words  there  is  no  record.  One 
must  look  rather  at  the  record  of  the  development 
of  Hampton  school — study  the  spirit  that  formed 
it  or  trace  in  the  North  the  creation  of  a  public 
sentiment  in  favor  of  Negro  industrial  education, 
and  try  to  re-create  from  the  memories  of  friends 
the  personality  that,  more  than  all  his  eloquence, 
won  him  a  hearing  in  the  busy  northern  world. 

The  spirit  of  school  life  at  Hampton  is  expressed 
in  a  few  words  which  he  spoke  in  1891  at  an  anni- 
versary of  his  old  school  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands : 

"It  remains  to  make  the  best  of  things.     Those  who 
181 


1 82  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

are  hopeless  disarm  themselves,  and  may  as  well  go  to 
the  rear;  men  and  women  of  faith,  optimists,  to  the 
front.  This  is  the  Christian  era.  'In  hoc  signo  vinces* 
is  the  motto  of  the  faithful;  they  are  not  afraid.  But 
mere  optimism  is  stupid;  sanctified  common  sense  is 
the  force  that  counts.  Work  for  God  and  man  is  full 
of  detail.  It  needs  organization,  requires  subordination, 
sometimes  painful  holding  of  the  tongue;  gabble  and 
gossip,  even  that  of  the  pious,  is  one  of  the  most  fatal 
devices  of  the  evil  one;  the  friction  and  fuss  in  God's 
army  does  much  to  defeat  it.  Many  people  are  good, 
but  good  for  nothing.  Working  together  is  as  im- 
portant as  working  at  all." 

The  fact  that  General  Armstrong  incorporated 
his  first  annual  report  to  the  trustees  in  a  report  of 
twenty  years  later,  with  the  comment  that  he  would 
hardly  change  a  word  of  it  for  present  or  future 
use,  is  significant.  Many  men  start  with  a  concep- 
tion of  their  work  which  is  modified  by  circum- 
stances and  experience;  but  Armstrong  adhered 
to  the  same  plan  for  the  entire  length  of  his  active 
life,  and  his  reports  and  letters  might,  but  for  the 
record  of  events  of  the  year — this  building  com- 
pleted, that  needed — be  interchanged,  putting  the 
first  last  and  the  last  first.  So,  too,  his  views  on 
Negro  affairs,  once  stated,  remain  unchanged,  for 
it  could  be  said  of  the  Negro  throughout  this  period 
that  "in  spite  of  material  and  intellectual  advances, 
his  deficiencies  of  character  are  worse  for  him  and 
for  the  world  than  his  mere  ignorance."  * 

*  First  annual  report  to  trustees,  1870. 


At  Hampton.    J870-J890  183 

Most  of  the  students  at  Hampton  for  this  term  of 
years  came  from  working  people  who  were  more 
ambitious  for  their  children  than  for  themselves. 
Although  many  of  these  young  men  and  women 
were  born  after  slavery  was  past,  their  traditions 
were  of  slavery;  and  while  they  were  well  meaning 
and  prepared  to  work  if  they  had  to,  and  while 
they  practised  the  forms  of  Christianity,  they 
possessed  but  little  comprehension  of  the  real 
teachings  of  Christ,  and  were  ignorant  alike  of  the 
care  of  body  and  mind.  Merry  of  temperament, 
care  did  not  long  trouble  their  breasts;  seeking  the 
light  with  earnestness,  they  had  to  contend  against 
the  bad  influences  of  inheritance  and  lack  of  training. 
No  one  believed  in  them,  and  they  did  not  believe 
in  themselves;  they  needed  an  accession  of  self- 
respect,  and  to  stimulate  this  quality  General 
Armstrong's  first  efforts  were  directed. 

Partly  for  this  purpose  and  partly  in  order  to 
provide  for  permanence  and  future  growth,  the 
first  buildings  at  Hampton  were  costly  and  imposing 
brick  structures.  The  first  building,  Academic  Hall, 
stood  alone  on  a  sandy  knoll  by  the  water,  with 
boys'  dormitories  in  the  top  and  rooms  for  recitations 
occupying  the  body  of  the  building.  This  building, 
which  Armstrong  spoke  of  as  "my  monument  as 
much  as  anybody's,"  rose  above  the  salt  marshes 
and  flats  of  that  desolate  region  like  a  monu- 
ment indeed. 

It  was  soon   followed   by  a  second  and  larger 


1 84  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

building,  made  necessary  by  the  rapid  increase  in 
the  number  of  pupils  and  the  rapid  expansion  of 
the  industrial  idea. 

This  second  building,  costing  $76,000,  was  begun 
when  but  $2 ,000  was  on  hand ;  but  General  Armstrong 
was  confident  that  the  people  would  sustain  a  wise 
work  for  the  freedmen  if  they  could  feel  that  real 
enterprise  and  devotion  were  behind  the  plea  which 
he  made  to  them;  he  had  a  hole  dug,  piled  the 
bricks  and  lumber  about  it,  built  the  foundation, 
had  the  corner-stone  ready  to  be  laid,  and  invited 
a  large  party  from  New  York  and  Boston  to  come 
down  and  visit  the  "  mute  appeal."  *  As  a  result  of 
his  efforts,  money  came  with  which  to  begin  the 
erection  of  the  building,  and  though  the  panic  of 
1873  intervened  between  the  beginning  and  the 
completion  of  the  building,  he  was  able,  through  the 
efforts  of  the  "Hampton  Singers,"  who  "sung  up" 
its  brick  walls  with  true  enthusiasm  for  the  cause, 
to  complete  it  without  running  into  debt. 

Virginia  Hall  was  a  dignified  building,  of  a  capac- 
ity far  beyond  the  actual  needs  of  the  Hampton 
school  as  it  was  at  that  time.  Some  people  doubted 
the  wisdom  of  erecting  such  an  expensive  and  com- 
paratively elaborate  structure  for  the  instruction  of 
the  proverbially  careless,  unappreciative  Negroes,  who 
were  supposed  to  be  trained  merely  as  teachers  for 
primary  schools;  the  expenditure  of  $76,000  for  such 

*As  he  afterward  laughingly  called  a  hole  dug  for  the  pur- 
pose of  dumbly  begging  aid. 


At  Hampton*    1870-1890  185 

a  purpose  seemed  a  disproportionate  outlay.  Arm- 
strong defended  his  course  by  showing  how  economic- 
ally in  such  a  building  the  various  functions  assigned 
to  it  could  be  carried  on.  "Serving  the  cause  by 
its  well-arranged  and  commodious  interior,  con- 
taining no  lot  of  waste  room,"  he  said.  Scientific 
cooking  and  heating  were  valuable  object  lessons  for 
boys  and  girls  just  out  of  a  log  cabin.  He  pointed 
out  that  a  less  tasteful  and  imposing  structure 
would  have  failed  to  awaken  among  the  graduates 
so  much  pride  in  their  Alma  Mater,  and  that  the 
reputation  and  influence  of  the  school,  both  among 
its  white  and  its  black  neighbors,  would  be  greatly 
increased  by  the  erection  of  a  building  of  which 
every  one  could  be  proud.  When  completed, 
the  lofty  towers  of  Virginia  Hall,  showing  far 
above  any  building  in  the  vicinity,  seen  for  miles 
over  the  low-lying  country  by  the  dwellers  in 
hundreds  of  squalid  and  hopeless  Negro  homes  and 
by  hundreds  of  oystermen  on  the  waters  of  Chesa- 
peake Bay,  stood  for  far  more  than  the  fact  that  a 
normal  school  for  Negro  youths  was  situated  there; 
it  stood  for  the  faith  in  their  race  that  was  held  by 
one  man  who  dared  to  risk  financial  reputation  as 
well  as  social  position  in  their  behalf. 

Although  no  expense  was  spared  to  make  the 
buildings  permanent  and  commanding,  the  furnish- 
ings of  the  room  within  were  simple  to  plainness. 
"Costly  buildings  stimulate  self-respect;  but  beds, 
furniture  and  clothing  are  good  but  simple,  no 


1 86  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

better  than  what  they  can,  by  their  own  industry,  get 
at  home."  To  this  rule  Armstrong  always  adhered, 
providing  male  students  with  home-made  straw 
mattresses,  and  all  with  such  simple  furnishing  that 
any  of  it  could  have  been  made  at  his  own  home  by 
either  boy  or  girl.  The  same  idea  was  carried  out 
in  regard  to  food;  accustomed  at  home  to  "hog  and 
hominy,"  this  or  its  equivalent  was  their  fare  at 
school,  though  he  took  care  that  it  should  be 
properly  cooked  and  served. 

After  the  erection  of  Virginia  Hall  other  buildings 
followed  in  rapid  succession,  so  that  during  this 
period  the  material  growth  of  the  school  was  its 
most  marked  characteristic.  But  in  Armstrong's 
thought  the  heart  of  all  his  work  was  the  arrange- 
ment of  an  effective,  practical  routine  of  hand  and 
head  work,  the  preservation  of  such  an  atmosphere 
of  energy  and  devotion  that  no  student  could  fail 
to  be  impressed  by  it. 

The  routine  planned  in  1870  and  continued  for 
twenty  years  practically  unchanged  was  simple. 
Beginning  an  hour  before  daybreak  in  winter,  a 
twelve-hour  day  of  work,  study  and  military  drill, 
with  but  a  few  minutes  for  daily  recreation,  left 
little  time  for  self-indulgence  and  indolence.  ' '  There 
is  little  mischief  done  where  there  is  no  time  for  it; 
activity  is  a  purifier,"  said  General  Armstrong. 
Coeducation,  too,  a  part  of  the  Hampton  scheme, 
which  General  Armstrong  considered  second  only 
to  manual  labor  as  an  educational  force  for  the 


At  Hampton*     J870-J890  187 

Negro,  was  only  made  possible  by  this  very  arduous 
routine.  "Its  success,"  he  writes,  "is  assured  by 
incessant  varied  activity  of  mind  and  body,  with 
proper  relaxation  and  amusement  in  an  atmosphere 
of  Christian  influence  and  sympathy." 

It  was  a  test  of  physique  and  endurance  in  which 
few  white  men  and  women  could  have  come  out 
victorious.  And  herein  lay  Armstrong's  audacity 
and  the  secret  of  his  success,  that  he  had  dared  to 
apply  it  to  the  indolent  Negro ;  seeing  in  his  inherited 
reserve  of  physical  endurance  and  patience  to  plod 
on  toward  a  far-away  goal,  in  his  docile  disposition 
which  enabled  him  to  accept  a  hard-and-fast  routine 
without  revolt,  qualities  which  fitted  him  for  constant 
application  and  continuous  effort  at  high  tension. 

General  Armstrong  met  his  pupils  regularly  and 
often,  both  in  public  and  private.  If  any  had  a 
"grievance,"  as  he  himself  would  say,  or  was  dis- 
satisfied with  work  or  surroundings,  he  had  but  to 
ask  in  order  to  see  "the  General,"  as  Armstrong 
was  commonly  called  by  his  pupils.  He  was 
accessible  to  all,  sitting  in  the  little  box  of  a  room 
that  served  him  for  many  years  as  an  office,  where 
he  received  complaints  and  requests  and  discharged 
them  with  quick  comprehension  of  the  point  and 
a  ready,  keen  answer  that  closed  the  discussion. 
Many  of  his  pupils  will  remember  him  thus  seated, 
his  pen  in  his  hand,  his  piercing  eyes  looking  out 
over  glasses,  a  straight  figure  instinct  with  life. 

He  knew  how  to  be  severe,  having  no  patience 


1 88  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

with  lying  or  laziness.  "There  is  no  place  for  a 
lazy  man  in  this  world  or  the  next,"  he  said.  But 
a  kindly  humor  lurked  in  his  eyes,  and  he  never 
turned  a  culprit  away  without  the  sense  that  he 
was  understood  and  had  been  fairly  treated.  Words 
that  he  sometimes  used,  whether  quoted  or  original, 
described  his  attitude  toward  his  pupils:  " Human, 
therefore  imperfect;  human,  therefore  capable  of 
improvement." 

For  Negroes  and  Indians  with  their  shadowed  past 
he  had  a  pity  and  long  suffering  that  enabled  him 
to  bear  their  failings  with  philosophy  and  kept  him 
from  impatience  under  disappointment.  Once, 
when  a  promising  pupil  unexpectedly  went  to  the 
bad,  he  said:  "If  we  were  not  working  for  two 
hundred  years  hence,  this  might  be  discouraging." 
Through  all  discipline  ran  his  firm  military  methods ; 
he  was  severe  toward  an  offense,  but  when  the 
punishment  was  over  he  bore  no  ill  will  toward  the 
offender — a  method  well  adapted  to  increase  in  the 
suspicious  natures  of  the  Negro  and  Indian  that 
confidence  in  him  which  they  already  felt. 

He  met  some  of  his  pupils  weekly  in  the  class- 
room, instructing  them  in  his  favorite  study  of 
moral  philosophy,  as  it  was  then  called,  using  for  a 
text-book  Doctor  Hopkins' s  "Outline  Study  of 
Man."  It  was  a  great  pleasure  and  relaxation 
to  him  in  the  midst  of  his  prosaic  daily  routine  to 
turn  to  these  larger  aspects  of  man,  his  possibilities 
and  his  destiny,  which  were  associated  with  the 


At  Hampton.     \ 870- J 890  189 

leader  of  his  youth  and  with  the  quiet  seclusion  of 
his  college  days.  He  used  Doctor  Hopkins 's  methods 
in  conducting  a  class,  stimulating  by  quick  questions 
and  witty  rejoinder  the  interest  and  mental  activity 
of  his  scholars.  Like  Doctor  Hopkins,  he  believed 
that  the  class-room  should  be  a  jolly  place,  and  used 
to  say  that  no  recitation  was  complete  without  at 
least  one  good  laugh.  "  Laughter  makes  sport  of 
work,"  he  said.  While  his  military  manner  and 
stern  eye  made  him  feared  by  many  in  the  class- 
room, it  soon  became  evident  to  the  most  timid, 
from  his  patience  in  waiting  for  an  answer  or 
explaining  details  to  the  slow,  that  he  was  rather  to 
be  loved  than  feared.  As  he  advanced  in  years  a 
brusque  manner  grew  upon  him,  which  often 
scared  the  timid,  both  subordinates  and  pupils,  but 
in  the  end  they  all  understood  his  never-failing 
patience  and  love. 

One  who  would  see  him  in  his  most  usual  and 
interesting  relation  to  his  pupils,  however,  must 
picture  him  as  addressing  them  nightly  or  weekly 
from  the  central  platform  of  a  large  upper  room 
known  as  the  chapel,  with  seats  arranged  in  tiers, 
so  that  one  addressing  the  audience  could  hold 
every  eye,  where  seven  hundred  men  and  women, 
Indian,  Negro  and  white,  were  gathered  to  listen  to 
him.  On  such  occasions  he  felt  and  appeared  like 
a  general  taking  command  of  his  little  army,  an 
army  organized  to  fight  vice  and  ignorance,  against 
which  he  stood  forth  as  if  they  had  been  foes  of 


1 90  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

flesh  and  blood.  It  was  his  custom  to  hold  by  rapid 
question  and  answer,  as  in  his  class-room,  the  atten- 
tion of  his  childlike  audience. 

An  excellent  example  of  his  method  of  address 
is  the  following,, delivered  shortly  before  his  death 
in  1893: 

"Spend  your  life  in  doing  what  you  can  well.  If  you 
can  teach,  teach.  If  you  can't  teach,  but  can  cook  well, 
do  that.  If  a  man  can  black  boots  better  than  anything 
else,  what  had  he  better  do  ?  Black  boots.  [Laughter.] 
Yes,  and  if  a  girl  can  make  an  excellent  nurse,  and  do 
that  better  than  anything  else,  what  had  she  better  do  ? 
Nurse.  Yes,  she  can  do  great  good  that  way  in  taking 
care  of  the  sick  and  suffering.  Some  of  our  girls  have 
done  great  good  already  in  that  way.  Do  what  you  can 
do  well  and  people  will  respect  it  and  respect  you. 
That  is  what  the  world  wants  of  every  one.  It  is  a 
great  thing  in  life  to  find  out  what  you  can  do  well. 
If  a  man  can't  do  anything  well,  what's  the  matter 
with  him?  Lazy  I  Yes,  that's  it.  A  lazy  man  can't 
do  anything  well  and  no  one  wants  him  around.  God 
didn't  make  the  world  for  lazy  people. 

"The  Senior  Class  is  soon  to  go  out.  You  must 
expect  to  teach,  and  you  can  teach  well,  can't  you? 
You  must  try,  at  any  rate.  If  after  trying  you  find 
you  can't,  then  do  something  else  that  you  can  do;  but 
give  it  a  fair  trial.  This  school  is  a  school  to  train 
teachers.  It  is  bound  to  turn  out  teachers.  It  must 
be  honest.  A  great  deal  of  money  is  given  and  spent 
for  this  object,  so  we  must  honestly  carry  it  out. 

"We  send  out  the  Middle  Class,  too,  to  teach  a  year 
before  they  take  the  Senior  studies.  How  many  are 
in  the  Middle  Class  now?  Seventy-five.  And  how 


At  Hampton*    J870-J890  191 

many  are  expecting  to  teach?  [All  hands  went  tip.] 
All.  That's  good.  Now  I  will  ask  some  of  the  Seniors 
to  say  what  their  year  out  teaching  did  for  them.  .  .  . 
Go  out  from  here  to  fight  against  sin.  Fight  the  devil. 
Fight  against  badness,  evil  and  ignorance,  disease,  bad 
cooking.  Help  your  people  in  teaching,  in  care  of  the 
sick,  in  improving  land,  in  making  better  homes.  Do 
what  you  can  do  well,  and  do  it  as  well  as  you  can." 

Many  of  these  talks  bore  a  deep  religious  impress, 
and  many  young  men  and  women  date  from  them 
their  first  impulse  toward  a  true  Christian  life. 
Armstrong's  nature  was  so  deeply  ingrained  with 
the  sense  of  the  presence  of  a  living  God  that  his 
slightest  word  on  spiritual  themes  carried  peculiar 
weight.  There  was  no  pupil  present  who  did  not 
gain  from  Armstrong  an  illuminating  sense  of  the 
value  of  his  own  petty  routine  of  work,  who  did  not 
feel  that  his  daily  tasks  were  made  interesting 
because  they  were  part  of  a  large,  comprehensible 
plan,  made  worth  while  because  behind  them  all 
lay  Armstrong's  immovable  faith  in  him.  There 
was  no  Negro,  however  ignorant  or  dull,  who  did 
not  at  times  catch  a  glimpse  of  this  inspiring  vision 
of  his  possibilities  and,  if  he  remained  long  under 
the  influence  of  it,  become  moved  into  accept- 
ance of  it. 

Though  General  Armstrong  often  expressed  him- 
self unconventionally  when  talking  with  his  personal 
friends  on  religious  matters,  in  his  work  he  adhered 
closely  to  the  customary  forms  of  religious  expression. 


Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

He  always  bore  in  mind  where  his  pupils  came  from 
and  to  what  manner  of  life  they  were  going,  and 
that  what  they  carried  away  with  them  must  be 
not  only  genuine,  but  simple  and  easily  grasped  by 
their  neighbors.  He  saw  that  they  must  not  be 
thrown  out  of  sympathy  with  what  was  good  in  the 
methods  in  vogue  about  them,  and  never  spoke  in  a 
way  calculated  to  disturb  the  simple  religious  con- 
victions of  his  audience.  Regarding  religious  forms 
he  once  said:  "They're  imperfect  enough,  but  they 
are  the  best  we've  got."  He  was  urgent  in  his 
demands  on  the  students  to  become  Christians  while 
at  Hampton,  saying  that  if  they  did  not  then  do 
so  they  never  would.  He  often  spoke  at  prayer 
meetings  held  by  the  students,  encouraging  a  free, 
genuine  expression  of  religious  feeling,  but  cutting 
ruthlessly  off  long-winded  remarks  and  expressions 
savoring  of  cant.  In  the  early  days  of  the  school, 
when  it  was  still  in  the  leading-strings  of  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association,  the  question  of  "ortho- 
dox or  non-orthodox,"  even  to  the  point  of  receiving 
Unitarian  money,  *  was  a  live  one.  He  answered  it 
in  his  own  direct  way,  and  his  words  were  as  true 
in  1890  as  when  they  were  written  in  1870: 

"The  institute  must  have  a  positive  character.  It 
has !  It  is  orthodox  and  that's  the  end  of  it,  although 
I  confess  I  never  told  the  school  it  was  so,  and  I  don't 
believe  one  of  our  pupils  knows  what  'orthodox*  means. 

*The  school  received  for  many  years  a  large  part  of  its  income 
from  Unitarian  sources. 


At  Hampton*    J870-J890  193 

We  mean  to  teach  the  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ,  accepting 
them  as  inspired  and  as  recorded  in  the  Bible." 

How  truly  he  believed  in  sincere  manifestations 
of  religious  feeling  may  be  seen  in  the  following 
letter  written  to  a  friend  in  1883: 

"There  is  now  in  the  school  the  deepest  and  most 
intense  religious  feeling  I  ever  knew.  We  have  instead 
of  evening  prayers  daily  meetings  of  about  half  an  hour, 
in  which  the  students  in  quick  succession  rise  for  a  few 
words  of  experience  or  prayer.  In  all  the  five  hundred 
who  are  present  there  is  no  excitement.  It  is  like  a 
Quaker  meeting,  so  quiet  is  it.  All  speak  in  an  under- 
tone. There  is  a  sense  of  the  divine  presence  in  our 
midst,  yet  these  four  hundred  wild,  passionate  Negro 
hearts,  stirred  to  their  depth,  make  no  noise.  A  few 
sobs  have  been  heard.  The  stillness  is  only  broken  by 
earnest,  cheerful  verses  of  hymns  sung  from  time  to 
time.  The  most  touching  of  all  are  the  few-months-ago- 
wild  Indians  who  speak  a  few  words  in  broken  English 
or  a  prayer  in  the  Dakota  language.  .  .  .  Routine 
work  and  study  go  on.  The  school  work  is  done  in 
better  temper  and  style  than  ever." 

A  pupil  writes  of  Armstrong's  relations  with 
his  students: 

"I  loved  to  go  to  evening  prayers  to  listen  to  his 
talks  and  his  prayers  for  us  during  the  night  and  for  the 
work  he  was  doing.  General  Armstrong  always  spoke 
very  fast,  but  when  he  prayed  it  was  slow  and  deliberate. 
I  did  always  enjoy  his  Sunday  evening  talks.  I  never 
once  grew  tired  of  hearing  him.  He  would  often  say 


194  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

to  those  who  were  sleepy,  'Sleep  on,  I  don't  mind;  you 
need  plenty  of  sleep.  I  will  talk  to  those  awake.' 
When  the  hour  came  to  dismiss  us,  he  would  rouse  us  by 
having  us  sing  a  very  lively  song." 

He  felt  the  importance  of  keeping  close  relations 
with  the  graduates  and  ex-students  of  the  Hampton 
school,  in  order  that  they  might  retain  and  be 
helped  by  the  impressions  received  at  Hampton. 
He  said: 

"Hampton  is  a  school  of  civilization  meant  to  bear 
directly  as  a  directive,  inspiring  force  on  these  two 
races,  not  only  through  those  whom  it  sends  out,  but 
indirectly  by  its  influence  on  other  institutions  for 
these  races  which  to  some  degree  look  to  it  for 
example  and  lessons." 

He  regarded  these  graduate  workers  as  young 
lieutenants  in  the  field,  fighting  their  first  fight  in 
command  of  troops: 

"There  is  a  certain  spirit  of  conquest  in  this  work 
that  I  like.  We  have  lots  of  strong  places  to  take  and 
we  have  the  force  to  do  it.  To  be  bold  and  honest  and 
work  the  darkey  into  shape  and  keep  the  white  man  in 
good  humor  is  not  very  easy,  but  it  can  be  done." 

Many  of  his  epigrammatic  remarks  remained 
firmly  fixed  in  their  minds.  Years  after  his  death, 
the  students  at  Hampton  sometimes  held  an  evening 
of  quotations  from  his  words,  and  many  recalled 
them  with  great  exactness.  One  writes: 


At  Hampton.    \  870-  \  890  195 

"I  shall  always  remember  his  saying,  'Help  your 
people  by  giving  them  what  has  been  given  to  you.' 
'Doing  what  can't  be  done  is  the  glory  of  living.'" 

This  attitude  of  cheerful  optimism  was  the  only 
one  which  could  have  roused  the  Negro  to  effort  and 
self-respect.  General  Armstrong  never  spoke  much 
of  heredity,  but  always  of  the  power  of  surroundings. 

"Success  is  not  a  matter  of  conditions,  but  rather 
of  predestinations,"  he  said;  "not  but  what  heredity 
is  a  power  in  life,  but  that  it  is  secondary  decidedly  to 
the  surroundings  of  a  man.  This  fact  is  not  appreciated 
as  it  should  be." 

This  hopeful  tone  pervaded  every  phase  of  Arm- 
strong's thought.  "Hopeless  ones  are  only  grave- 
diggers  for  themselves  and  the  rest."  He  once 
sprang  up  at  a  meeting  at  Lake  Mohonk,  New  York, 
when  an  objection  was  made  that  a  certain  course 
approved  by  him  was  "impossible."  "What  are 
Christians  put  into  the  world  for  but  to  do  the 
impossible  in  the  strength  of  God?"  he  exclaimed. 
This  sentiment  he  commonly  expressed  in  the 
following  story — for  feeling  and  fun  played  twin 
parts  in  his  conversation: 

"Once  there  was  a  woodchuck.  .  .  .  Now,  wood- 
chucks  can't  climb  trees.  Well,  this  woodchuck  was 
chased  by  a  dog  and  came  to  a  tree.  He  knew  that  if 
he  could  get  up  this  tree  the  dog  could  not  catch  him. 
Now,  woodchucks  can't  climb  trees,  but  he  had  to,  so 
he  did." 


196  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Increasingly  up  to  1878,  the  year  of  the  death  of 
his  wife,  to  a  somewhat  less  extent  after  that  date, 
General  Armstrong  was  the  center  of  the  social  life 
at  the  Hampton  school.  The  institution  formed  a 
curious  little  isolated  community,  with  its  four  or 
five  hundred  blacks,  its  group  of  Indians,  and 
dominant  circle  of  whites,  mostly  women.  Sufficient 
in  itself  socially  this  circle  had  to  be,  for  there  was 
no  social  life  open  to  it  outside  of  its  own  limits. 
When  work  was  over,  General  Armstrong  was  the 
first  to  propose  boating  or  driving  excursions, 
picnics,  and  expeditions  of  all  kinds,  as  if  he  had 
nothing  else  to  attend  to. 

"I  remember,"  writes  a  friend,  "however  late  in  the 
evening  it  was,  he  would  be  at  our  doorsteps  and  full 
of  some  plan,  no  matter  what  trouble  to  himself  was 
involved.  Once  we  took  the  boat  to  Yorktown  early 
in  the  morning.  He  was  desirous  of  getting  up  an  all- 
night  excursion,  and  was  ready  to  send  blankets  and 
mattresses  anywhere . ' ' 

The  old  "brick  thing"  of  a  house,  the  mansion 
house  of  the  Wood  farm,  to  which  he  referred  in  a 
letter  written  in  1868,  was  gradually  made  over  into 
an  attractive  and  unique  home.  In  the  rear  of  the 
solid  brick  and  stucco  of  the  original  structure, 
garlanded  with  ivies  and  honeysuckle  and  opening 
its  ample  rooms  in  generous  hospitality,  was  a 
series  of  heterogeneous  wooden  additions  consecrated 
to  various  and  ever-changing  uses ;  at  one  time,  when 
the  usual  recitation  building  had  been  burned,  the 


\ 


r 


<    3 
<;    i-pi 


S   fi 


At  Hampton*    f  870-1890  197 

entire  house  became  a  study-hall,  with  blackboards 
perched  in  the  parlors  and  bulletins  posted  in  the 
corridors.  General  Armstrong's  favorite  room  was 
a  little  bay-windowed  study,  where,  surrounded  by 
the  books  of  his  choice  and  pictures  of  his  Hawaiian 
home,  he  found  occasional  rest.  Sometimes,  when 
elm  and  honeysuckle  were  in  leaf  and  flower  beside 
the  water,  the  old  house  swarmed  with  Commence- 
ment guests,  who  sipped  lemonade  on  its  piazza  and 
perhaps  looked  curiously  at  the  shabby  exterior, 
with  its  discolored  walls  and  odd  climax  in  the 
shape  of  a  half-crumbling  greenhouse  at  one  end. 
One  said:  "Everything  seems  to  be  in  good  repair 
but  the  General's  house."  In  1886  a  sum  was 
reluctantly  accepted  by  Armstrong  for  the  rehabili- 
tation of  it.  He  never  thought  of  a  house  except 
as  a  shelter  from  the  weather,  where  you  could 
meet  your  friends  and  where  any  one  who  needed 
it  could  find  shelter  and  hospitality. 

During  the  brief  hours  spent  at  home  he  was  often 
silent  and  absorbed,  and  anything  that  was  un- 
pleasant or  exciting  troubled  him,  especially  dis- 
cussion, or  "debating,"  as  he  called  it.  Music  was 
a  great  delight  to  him  in  its  simpler  forms,  becoming 
fatiguing  when  more  complex.  He  played  a  little 
on  the  flute,  but  never  having  time  to  practise  upon 
it,  strove  vainly  thus  to  express  his  musical  aspira- 
tions. His  taste  for  drawing,  which  might  with  train- 
ing have  developed  into  a  real  pleasure  and  resource 
to  him,  was  used  only  in  comic  illustrations  in  letters 


1 98  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

to  his  children.  Reading  was  the  only  resource  to 
which  in  his  home  life,  with  its  slight  opportunities 
for  relaxation,  he  could  turn.  As  evening  drew  on 
he  loved  to  ask  a  few  friends  to  his  house,  where, 
seated  in  his  old  green-velvet  arm-chair,  he  would 
read  in  his  dramatic  way  some  poems  of  Browning, 
"Lord  Clive,"  or  "Martin  Relph,"  or  perhaps  a 
Latin  ode  or  hymn — "Dies  Irae"  was  a  favorite; 
perhaps  some  simple  poem  of  nature,  as  Bryant's 
"Green  River."  Browning  was  during  his  latter 
years  his  prime  favorite  among  poets. 

He  was  a  great  reader,  and  his  table  was  heaped 
with  English  and  American  books  and  magazines 
bearing  on  the  Negro,  on  Indian  education  or  the 
general  aspect  of  some  question  of  humanitarian 
science ;  a  book  of  travel  or  exploration,  like  Stanley's 
"Darkest  Africa,"  interested  and,  he  said,  helped 
him,  because  it  was  the  picture  of  a  man  overcoming 
difficulties.  He  deeplv  enjoyed  Hughes's  "Life  of 
Livingstone,"  partly  for  the  same  reason,  partly 
because  it  shed  light  on  the  home  and  habits  of  the 
Negro  race  in  Africa. 

He  had  no  interest  in  the  detail  of  what  is 
commonly  called  "science,"  but  was  glad  to 
know  of  anything  that  promised  relief  or  benefit 
to  man.  It  was  a  great  grief  to  him  that 
he  could  find  no  time  for  general  literary  and 
classical  culture.  "Philanthropy  is  the  thief  of 
time,"  he  used  to  say.  As  early  as  1870,  in  a  letter 
to  his  .wife,  he  said: 


At  Hampton.    J870-J890  199 

"  I  hope  when  I  go  to  you  to  do  a  good  deal  of  reading 
and  freshen  up  myself  somewhat  in  the  classics;  this 
rusting  out  is  dreadful;  it  is  wearing  out.  I  wish  I  could 
lay  aside  human  nature  as  one  does  a  cloak  and  gently 
browse  awhile  in  green  pastures." 

But  his  interest  in  all  matters  pertaining  to  the 
welfare  of  man  reached  beyond  the  limit  which  his 
brief  leisure  for  reading  allowed.  He  was  a  subscriber 
for  years  to  the  National  Divorce  Reform  League, 
was  interested  in  the  industrial  problems  of  India, 
in  the  civilization  of  Africa,  and  most  of  all  in 
prison  reform.  He  writes: 

"If  I  shall  ever  have  work  or  influence  in  the  South 
for  anything  beyond  schools,  it  shall  be  for  prison 
reform.  That  has  been  in  my  thought  for  years.  I 
long  for  a  chance  to  take  hold,  but  it  will  all  come  out 
all  right." 

His  home  might  have  been  devoid  of  lightness 
but  that  it  was  illuminated  by  a  perennial  love  of 
fun,  a  love  of  fun  which  introduced  the  "Presby- 
terian war-dance"  and  "puss  in  the  corner"  among 
the  very  elect.  The  "war-dance"  was  a  "grand 
right  and  left"  danced  to  the  singing  of  "  Auld  Lang 
Syne"  and  gradually  growing  faster  and  faster  till 
every  one  was  too  breathless  to  sing.  How  many 
there  are  who  can  recall  the  gray-haired  leader 
rushing  the  dancers  on  and  calling  "  Faster  !  Faster  ! " 
or  scampering  across  the  room  or  lawn  chased  by 
some  small  boy  whose  young  legs  perforce  gained 


200  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the  race.  He  liked  to  tell  his  children,  when  an 
organ-grinder  went  by  with  his  monkey,  that  the 
monkey  hired  the  organ-grinder  by  the  month  to 
carry  him  round  and  play  for  him,  and  that  you 
could  tell  it  must  be  so,  because  the  man  walked  in 
the  dust  and  heat  and  carried  the  monkey  sitting 
with  his  legs  crossed,  and  handsomely  dressed  at 
ea§e  on  top  of  the  organ.  An  eclipse  of  the  sun 
which  he  saw  in  New  York  he  describes  as  follows: 

"Did  I  mention  the  eclipse?  It  passed  off  creditably 
as  seen  through  a  piece  of  smoked  glass  which  I  bought 
of  a  boy  in  the  streets  for  ten  cents.  It  amounted  to 
this,  that  the  sun  charged  ten  cents  for  every  spectator 
and  must  have  made  a  good  deal  of  money  out  of  it, 
unless  the  wretches  who  sold  the  glass  failed  to  'go 
snacks '  with  his  Imperial  Majesty  the  sun.  If  so,  there 
will  not  be  another  eclipse  soon." 

The  confiding  belief  of  his  little  girls  in  these 
fables  was  a  source  of  great  delight  to  him.  Indeed, 
his  relation  with  them  was  for  many  years  the 
greatest  pleasure  of  his  lonely  life.  While  they  were 
still  small  girls  he  wrote  constantly  to  them, 
often  in  a  series  of  story-letters  in  which  cats, 
dogs,  missionaries  and  good  and  bad  boys  and  girls 
figure  in  delightful  profusion,  and  in  which  the  good 
are  rewarded  and  the  wicked  punished  with  a  fidelity 
peculiar  to  fiction. 

Fortunately  for  the  permanence  of  his  influence 
on  young  colored  men  and  women,  he  did  not 


At  Hampton*    J870-J890  201 

forget  that  they  were  but  boys  and  girls  and  must 
have  healthy  fun  and  recreation  as  much  as  his  own 
children : 

"A  social  influence  over  them  is  all-important,  I 
think.  Whatever  you  do,  get  hold  of  their  amusements; 
supply  something  that  will  delight  them.  I  am  con- 
vinced of  the  necessity  of  organizing  pleasure  as  well  as 
religion  in  order  to  sustain  Christian  morality.  Sur- 
rounding influences  are,  on  the  human  side,  the  great 
uplifting  power.  The  power  of  it  is  marvelous,  es- 
pecially on  the  moral  character.  Anything  short  of 
personal  knowledge  of  and  influence  over  them 
amounts  to  little.  .  .  .  Here  once  in  a  while  we 
play  games,  teachers  always  present;  the  whole  thing 
kept  well  in  hand,  limited  to  an  hour.  The  whole 
matter  is  talked  frankly  and  freely  over  with  students, 
and  very  bright,  happy  times  through  ten  years'  ex- 
perience shows  it  to  be  wise  for  us.  ...  Efforts 
on  the  social  side  may  seem  discouraging,  but  touch 
and  sympathy  with  natives  *  must  be  kept  up,  if  it  is 
hard  work.  It  will  pay  when  trouble  comes." 

One  part  of  his  house  was  built  in  his  last  years 
for  the  express  purpose  of  recreation,  both  of  pupils 
and  of  teachers.  He  did  not  live  to  organize  his 
favorite  games  there,  but  the  room,  under  the 
name  of  the  recreation  room,  remains  as  a  reminder  of 
his  insistence  upon  the  importance  of  healthy  play 
for  all. 

His  teachers  discussed  frankly  with  him  plans  for 
the  growth  of  the  school.  In  these  discussions  he 

*  Spoken  of  Hawaiians,  but  applied  equally  to  Negroes. 


202  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

was  singularly  open  to  suggestion,  and  never  seemed 
to  regard  the  school  as  his  own,  but  rather  as  a  trust 
which  he  held  for  the  nation.  Every  new  idea  he 
listened  to  with  eagerness  and  incorporated  in  his 
work  if  there  was  any  good  in  it.  It  was  his  theory 
that  the  institution  was  a  kind  of  experiment 
station  where  the  worth  of  various  theories  could  be 
proved.  It  is  an  instance  of  his  amenableness  to 
suggestion  that  he  often  invited  a  free  written 
expression  of  opinion  from  subordinates  in  regard 
to  their  departments,  though  keeping  his  own 
counsel  in  regard  to  the  acceptance  of  advice : 

"I  have  seldom  followed  advice  implicitly,  which  is 
sometimes  the  best  and  sometimes  the  worst  thing  in 
the  world,  according  to  the  good  sense  of  the  giver,  but 
it  has  been  of  unspeakable  value  as  stimulating  thought 
and  has  led  to  much  change  of  direction;  one  'caroms' 
on  it,  as  one  billiard  ball  does  on  another."  * 

It  will  readily  be  seen  that  much  of  his  success  in 
dealing  with  an  impressionable  race  like  the  Negro 
lay  in  his  selection  of  assistants.  He  believed  that 
most  of  the  teachers  engaged  in  preparing  pupils 
for  teaching  in  the  public  schools  should  be  women, 
as  he  thought  their  influence  over  the  blacks  of  a 
more  refining  nature  than  that  of  men,  so  that  for 
many  years  most  of  his  assistants  were  women. 
One  who  was  closely  and  for  a  long  time  associated 
with  him  writes: 

*Address  at  Hawaiian  Islands,  1891. 


At  Hampton*     1870-1890  203 

"General  Armstrong  had  strong  convictions  in  regard 
to  'culture'  training  for  teachers;  for  this  reason  he 
rather  leaned  toward  college-trained  teachers,  or  women 

of  broad  culture  coming  from  families  like  the  B s 

[a  well-known  family  of  inherited  intellectual  ability]. 
He  felt  that  the  lack  of  knowledge  in  theory  and  practice 
which  these  teachers  often  show  was  offset  by  their 
superior  mental  culture.  He  was  often  heard  to  say 
that  such  students  as  those  at  Hampton  needed  to  be 
surrounded  by  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  culture ;  that  the 
Negro  was  quick  to  recognize  'de  quality.'  ' 

In  his  eagerness  to  help  the  unfortunate  wherever 
they  were  he  sometimes  invited  persons  in  the  con- 
dition known  as  "down  on  their  luck"  to  become 
teachers  at  Hampton,  expecting,  it  would  seem, 
that  as  the  inspiration  from  contact  with  so  great 
a  cause  came  upon  them,  the  faults  which  had 
brought  them  to  this  condition  would  be  remedied. 
One  or  two  of  these  persons  were  usually  to  be  found 
at  Hampton  occupied  in  some  branch  of  work 
devised  especially  for  them,  oddly  incongruous 
elements,  but  not  disloyal  to  the  genuine  kindness 
which  brought  them  there.  From  his  earliest  to  his 
last  days  Armstrong's  sun  rose  alike  upon  the  evil 
and  the  good;  on  the  whole,  however,  he  gathered 
together  a  strong  body  of  teachers,  remarkably  suc- 
cessful in  working  together. 

"  In  our  associated  life  at  Hampton,  of  all  things  we 
wish  charity  and  consideration  for  each  other.  Hasty 
and  sharp  expressions  when  we  differ  are  most  mis- 


204  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

chievous;  good  temperament  is  the  great  thing  to 
secure  unity  and  a  never-broken  mutual  cooperation  in 
making  our  work  as  strong  and  perfect  as  possible." 

Having  in  mind  always,  like  another  great 
teacher,  Thomas  Arnold,  that  education  which  is 
not  mortal  and  spiritual  is  worse  than  no  education, 
he  yet  bound  his  teachers  to  no  creed.  Speaking 
of  one's  coming,  he  said: 

"She  need  not  be  'orthodox,'  but  simply  loyal  to  the 
school  as  it  is  and  do  the  best  she  can.  A  fine,  well- 
developed  personality,  along  with  skill  in  teaching, 
makes,  I  think,  an  ideal  teacner,  but  they  do  not  often 
go  together." 

He  eagerly  seized  on  people  whom  he  thought 
adapted  to  Hampton,  and  drew  them  there  often 
against  pressure  from  their  homes,  or  even  against 
their  own  previous  inclination;  for  as  he  said,  "I 
want  people  whom  everybody  else  wants."  When 
they  were  there  he  tried  to  make  them  happy,  encour- 
aging any  reasonable  taste  or  hobby  in  them,  or 
urging  them  to  develop  new  lines  of  work  at  Hamp- 
ton ;  for  he  valued  the  faculty  of  originality  in  sub- 
ordinates as  a  sign  of  potential  influence  and  innate 
power.  Yet,  although  intending  to  allow  full  scope 
for  the  individuality  of  each  teacher,  he  was  unable 
to  avoid  impressing  his  own  marked  characteristics 
upon  them  to  some  extent;  a  fact  to  which  is  due 
largely  the  impression  of  unity  between  the  man 
and  his  work  which  was  made  on  every  visitor. 


At  Hampton.    J870-J890  205 

His  ideal  of  the  scope  of  a  teacher's  work  was 
high: 

"The  country  and  people  must  be  studied  by  them  as 
none  of  us  are  able  to  do.  Only  by  touching  the  people 
he  is  working  for  can  a  teacher  get  the  true  range  and 
do  his  best  work." 

He  believed  that  the  study  of  man,  the  conditions 
of  civilization,  of  history  and  the  laws  of  develop- 
ment were  necessary  in  order  to  make  a  successful 
teacher  of  the  Negro  and  Indian  races. 

"Many  teachers  seem  to  me,"  he  said,  "to  have 
disproportionate  ideas  of  the  forces  that  make  up  man. 
.  .  .  There  is  plenty  of  study  of  methods,  not  enough 
of  study  of  men  or  of  the  problems  of  life." 

He  considered  the  gain  to  the  teacher  to  be  equal 
to  the  gain  to  the  pupil  at  Hampton  : 

"We  are  forced  to  do  work  that  by  bringing  us  more 
directly  into  the  line  of  God's  providence  gives  us  a 
drill  that  is  as  good  as  any  that  is  given  to  our  students." 

He  desired  that  no  teacher  should  come  to 
Hampton  unless  filled  with  a  spirit  of  helpfulness  to 
the  unfortunate.  In  a  letter  urging  one  to  accept 
an  offer  of  a  teacher's  place  there  he  says : 

"  You  well-born,  from  good  homes,  have  a  great  advan- 
tage over  these  children  of  darkness  and  misfortune. 
These  pupils  are  in  earnest  and  are  to  be  teachers  and 


206  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

leaders,  and  in  putting  your  mark  on  them  you  are 
putting  it  on  many  others." 

The  labor  system  first  recognized  by  General 
Armstrong  as  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the 
Hampton  school  assumed  more  and  more  impor- 
tance as  the  years  went  by.  The  circumstances  of 
its  earliest  years  and  the  final  and  permanent  out- 
come of  General  Armstrong's  work  for  the  principle 
of  combined  manual  labor  and  mental  work  are 
best  told  by  Booker  T.  Washington:* 

"When  General  Armstrong  undertook  to  introduce 
industrial  education  at  Hampton,  the  whole  subject 
was  new,  not  only  to  the  Negro,  but  to  northern  and 
southern  white  people.  The  general  impression  which 
prevailed  among  a  large  number  of  colored  people, 
especially  those  who  lived  in  cities  in  the  North  and 
who  had  received  some  advantages  of  education,  was 
that  industrial  education  was  something  which  was 
meant  to  retain  the  Negro  in  a  kind  of  slavery  to  limit 
his  sphere  of  activity.  Many  of  the  colored  people 
felt,  also,  that  it  was  a  kind  of  education  that  was  to 
be  applied  to  the  colored  people  only.  Added  to  this 
difficulty  was  another.  The  southern  white  people  as 
a  rule  approved  of  industrial  education.  This  made 
the  colored  people  all  the  more  suspicious  of  its  value 
and  object.  They  applied  in  a  measure  the  same  rule 
to  this  that  they  applied  to  politics  in  the  early  years  of 
freedom.  If  a  southern  white  man  favored  a  certain 

*Principal  of  Tuskegee  Institute,  Tuskegee,  Alabama,  who 
at  Hampton  Institute  in  its  earlier  years  received  the  baptism 
of  General  Armstrong's  spirit  and  has  since  his  graduation 
carried  on  a  similar  work. 


At  Hampton.    J870-J890  207 

political  measure,  the  colored  people  usually  opposed 
it.  Many  felt  that  if  industrial  education  was  a  good 
thing  for  the  Negro  the  southern  white  man  would 
not  favor  it. 

"For  a  number  of  years  after  the  work  was  started 
at  Hampton  it  was  misunderstood  in  the  directions  to 
which  I  have  referred,  as  well  as  in  many  others  which 
I  shall  not  take  the  time  to  name.  General  Armstrong, 
however,  went  on  calmly  pursuing  the  ends  that  he  had 
in  view,  seldom  stopping  to  explain  himself  or  to  be 
troubled  by  misrepresentations.  He  realized  the  value 
of  what  he  had  in  mind,  and  felt  sure  that  in  the 
end  the  whole  country  would  understand  him  and  come 
around  to  his  position. 

"As  I  have  often  heard  him  explain  his  theory  of 
industrial  education — both  to  me  personally  and  to  the 
school — when  I  was  a  student  at  Hampton,  I  think  I 
might  state  his  objects  briefly  as  follows : 

"First.  He  was  anxious  to  give  the  colored  people 
an  idea  of  the  dignity,  the  beauty  and  civilizing  power 
of  intelligent  labor  with  the  hand.  He  was  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  dealing  with  a  race  that  had 
little  necessity  to  labor  in  its  native  land  before  coming 
to  America,  and  after  coming  to  this  country  was  forced 
to  labor  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  under  circum- 
stances that  were  not  calculated  to  make  the  race  fond 
of  hard  work. 

"Second.  It  was  his  object  to  teach  the  Negro  to 
lift  labor  out  of  drudgery  and  toil  by  putting  thought 
and  skill  into  it. 

"Third.  He  saw  that  through  the  medium  of  indus- 
trial education  he  could  bring  the  two  races  in  the 
South  into  closer  relations  with  each  other.  He  knew 
that  in  other  matters  there  were  differences  which  it 
would  take  years  to  change,  but  he  knew  that  indus- 


208  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

trially  the  interests  of  the  two  races  were  identical  in 
the  South,  and  that  as  soon  as  he  could  prove  to  a  south- 
ern white  man  that  an  educated  skilled  Negro  workman 
was  of  more  value  to  the  community  than  an  ignorant, 
shiftless  one,  the  southern  white  man  would  take 
an  interest  in  the  education  of  the  black  boy. 

"Fourth.  Through  the  industrial  system  at  the 
Hampton  Institute  it  was  his  object  to  give  the  students 
an  opportunity  to  work  out  a  portion  of  their  boarding 
expenses.  In  this  way  he  meant  to  prevent  the  school 
becoming  a  hothouse  for  producing  students  with  no 
power  of  self-help  or  independence.  I  have  often  heard 
him  say  that  the  mere  effort  which  the  student  put  forth 
through  the  industries  at  Hampton  to  help  himself  was 
of  the  greatest  value  to  the  student,  whether  the  labor 
itself  was  of  very  much  value  or  not.  In  a  word,  he 
meant  to  use  the  industries  as  a  means  for  building 
character — to  teach  that  all  forms  of  labor  were  hon- 
orable and  all  forms  of  idleness  a  disgrace. 

"The  idea  of  industrial  education,  beginning  for  our 
people  at  Hampton,  has  gradually  spread  among  them 
until  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  it  has  permeated  the 
whole  race  in  every  section  of  the  country.  There  is 
not  a  State  in  the  Union  where  there  is  any  considerable 
proportion  of  our  race  whose  influence  counts  for  any- 
thing in  which  they  are  not  interested  in  industrial 
education  and  are  manifesting  this  interest  by  the 
establishment  of  a  school  or  by  other  substantial  helps. 
They  now  realize,  as  never  before,  that  the  education  of 
the  head,  the  heart  and  the  hand  must  go  together. 
That  while  we  need  classical  and  professional  men,  we 
need  a  still  larger  number  trained  along  industrial  lines. 

"  Not  only  has  General  Armstrong's  belief  in  industrial 
education  spread  among  our  people  in  the  South,  but 
its  influence  is  felt  in  the  West  Indies  and  Africa  and 


At  Hampton,     J870-J890  209 

other  foreign  countries,  to  such  an  extent  that  there  are 
many  calls  coming  from  these  countries  for  industrial 
education. 

"The  work  at  the  Tuskegee  Normal  and  Industrial 
Institute  is  simply  one  of  the  results  of  the  work  of  the 
Hampton  Institute.  There  are  a  number  of  industrial 
schools,  either  small  or  large,  in  every  State  where  there 
are  any  considerable  number  of  our  people. 

"Perhaps  the  most  interesting  thing  in  connection 
with  the  influence  of  General  Armstrong  is  the  rapid 
growth  and  spread  of  industrial  education  among  the 
southern  white  people.  For  a  number  of  years  after 
the  Hampton  Institute  was  started  the  southern  white 
people  gave  no  attention  to  the  subject,  and  rather  took 
for  granted,  I  think,  that  it  was  something  in  which  the 
Negroes  only  should  receive  training.  But  as  they 
realized  from  year  to  year  the  rapid  growth  of  industrial 
education  among  the  colored  people  and  the  skill  and 
intelligence  which  they  were  acquiring,  southern  white 
educators  here  and  there  began  to  make  investigation 
and  to  inquire  whether  or  not  the  same  kind  of  educa- 
tion was  not  needed  for  the  southern  white  boy  and  girl, 
and  very  carefully  and  modestly  at  first  industries  were 
introduced  into  a  white  school  here  and  there.  These 
schools,  however,  were  not  very  popular  among  the  white 
people  at  first,  but  the  idea  of  industrial  education 
among  the  southern  white  people  has  spread  until  at 
the  present  moment  I  think  every  southern  State  has 
one  or  more  institutions  established  for  this  kind  of 
training  for  white  youths,  and  the  industrial  idea  has 
become  almost  as  popular  among  the  white  people  as 
among  the  colored  people. 

' '  I  think  I  am  not  going  too  far  when  I  make  one  other 
suggestion,  and  that  is  that  the  whole  country  owes 
General  Armstrong  a  debt  not  only  for  the  rapid  and 


Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

permanent  growth  of  industrial  education  among  the 
colored  people  and  white  people  of  the  South,  but  it  is 
to  him  that  all  are  indebted  more  than  to  any  one  man 
for  the  growth  of  the  hand  training  in  the  northern  and 
western  States.  It  is  seldom,  in  my  opinion,  that  one 
individual  has  had  the  opportunity  through  a  single 
idea  to  revolutionize  the  educational  thought  and 
activity  of  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  world  as  has 
been  true  of  the  founder  of  Hampton."* 

The  idea  referred  to  by  Mr.  Washington  as  held 
by  the  Negroes — namely,  that  industrial  education 
tended  to  lower  them  in  their  own  eyes  and  in  the 
esteem  of  others — contains  this  germ  of  truth,  that 
in  the  economic  sense  an  education  for  labor  alone, 
even  for  skilled  labor,  is  a  class  education.  Many 
Southerners  no  doubt  acquiesced  in  the  idea  of  indus- 
trial education  for  the  Negroes,  because  they  thought 
that  to  keep  them  artisans,  mechanics  and  farmers 
was  to  keep  them  in  a  class  by  themselves,  and  a 
class  separated  from,  their  own  by  a  lack  of  culture 
and  of  common  social  meeting-ground.  It  was 
no  wonder  that  the  colored  race  distrusted 
Armstrong's  scheme  of  combined  labor  and  learning 
and  that  they  sought  the  advantages  of  Hampton 
for  many  years  more  because  of  the  intellectual 
than  the  manual  training  afforded  there. 

General  Armstrong,  however,  conceived  of  the 
value  of  labor  in  a  different  way ;  he  did  not  wish  to 
make  a  labor  caste,  a  social  grade  of  hand-workers, 
although  their  skill  and  training  should  force 

*  Written  for  this  book. 


At  Hampton*     1870- J890  211 

respect  for  their  race;  he  simply  saw  that  habits  of 
labor  constituted  a  great  and  the  only  conceivable 
moral  force  that  would  lift  the  average  Negro  from 
his  attitude  of  indifference  and  slovenliness  to  one 
of  earnest  endeavor  and  industry. 

As  the  manual- training  system  worked  itself  out 
at  Hampton,  Armstrong  held  with  an  iron  grip  to  his 
original  idea,  "  Labor  as  a  moral  force, "  and  produc- 
tive labor,*  because  it  taught  the  student  more  life 
if  less  trade.  He  was  filled  through  and  through 
with  a  deep  sense  that  by  hard  work  alone  can  any 
of  us  be  saved — a  sense  based  on  many  obscure 
foundations  of  observation  and  deduction.  Away 
back  in  the  corners  of  his  mind  were  recollections 
of  sundry  wood-choppings  and  milkings  carried  on 
under  protest  by  himself  and  his  companions,  and 
knowledge,  too,  of  how  his  father  and  mother  had 
spent  their  ambitious  youth  in  work,  the  mother 
spinning  by  the  fireside,  the  father  doing  chores  at 
his  home  in  Pennsylvania.  It  was  the  boys  who 
faced  and  conquered  hard  physical  jobs  that  became 
the  men  of  endurance  later.  These  half-defined 
thoughts  did  much  to  shape  his  policy  toward  the 
Negro.  What  builds  character  in  one  man  builds 
it  in  another,  he  thought,  and  forthwith  set  about 
to  imitate  the  old  home  training — hard  work  done 
for  the  sake  of  the  product  and  rewarded  by  the 
satisfaction  of  accomplishment,  as  well  as  by  more 

*  That  is,  as  opposed  to  the  technical  method  which  teaches 
principles  alone  and  as  a  general  rule  destroys  the  product. 


212  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

tangible  benefits — but  to  better  it  by  more  instruc- 
tion than  his  parents  ever  got  in  doing  their  chores. 
Writing  (in  1887)  of  the  St.  Louis  Manual-Labor 
Training-School,  he  said: 

"The  manual  instruction  is  given  on  the  Russian  plan ; 
that  is,  men  are  taught  to  make  those  forms  of  wood 
and  iron  which  enter  into  every  article  that  can  be  made 
of  these  materials ;  just  as  girls  learn  the  piano  by  playing 
exercises  and  not  tunes.  .  .  .  It  is  no  experiment. 
It  is  the  nearest  to  perfection  of  the  fine  methods  of 
training  head  and  hand  together  that  I  know  of.  ... 
I  only  here  remark  that  such  a  labor  school  belongs 
rather  to  a  high  civilization.  The  student's  personal 
support  is  assured  by  the  accumulated  savings  of  edu- 
cated generations.  There  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  go 
directly  at  the  special  work  in  hand.  At  Hampton, 
for  instance,  and  in  like  schools  for  like  people,  the  bread 
and  butter  and  clothes  question  is  primary  if  not  para- 
mount. They  must  have  something  to  eat  before  they 
can  be  taught.  So  we  pay  them  for  their  work,  instead 
of,  as  in  St.  Louis,  being  paid  for  what  work  we  give 
them.  We  must  make  not  ideal  articles,  but  things  we 
can  sell  or  eat,  or  it  will  be  all  up  with  us.  In  doing 
this  our  workmen  learn  much,  not  so  thoroughly,  nicely 
and  quickly  as  by  the  Russian  method,  but  perhaps 
better  for  the  rougher  life  and  experience  of  the  South 
and  West.  A  rounded  character  rather  than  mere 
technical  skill  is  our  point.  The  morale  of  the  one  is 
assumed;  in  the  other  it  is  to  be  created. 

"They  wish  to  make  a  specialist;  we  wish  to  make  a 
self-reliant  man.  They  chisel  daintily  away  at  one 
who  is  'heir  of  all  the  ages,'  to  make  him  a  little  more 
perfect.  We  hew  from  the  raw  material  men  who  have 


At  Hampton.    J87CM890  213 

come  out  of  deep  darkness  and  wrong,  without  inherit- 
ance but  of  savage  nature,  the  best  product  we  can,  and 
care  as  much  to  infuse  it  with  a  spiritual  life  and  divine 
energy  as  with  knowledge  of  the  saw,  plane  and  hoe. 
Such  work  is  full  of  inspiration.  It  drags  only  because 
few  appreciate  the  tremendous  drain  on  the  skill  and 
resources  required.  .  .  .  There  must  be  a  differ- 
ence in  the  educational  methods  for  the  races  in  our 
country  that  are  a  thousand  years  behind  the  whites 
in  the  line  of  development." 

He  writes  in  1885: 

"Eventually,  special  training  should  be  given  to 
special  students.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time  and 
money  when  we  shall  have  a  technical  department  here 
equal  to  any  in  the  northern  cities.  It  is  precisely  in 
the  line  of  our  development.  Constant  work  for  wages 
and  discipline  is  the  foundation  of  our  industrial  and 
academic  system.  Special  class-training  in  mechanical 
principles  for  the  higher  walks  of  labor  should  be  its 
completion.  .  .  .  We  aim  to  train  teachers  for 
teaching  schools  in  the  South,  taking  the  best  material 
from  our  industrial  departments." 

As  the  Negro  advanced  from  what  Armstrong 
called  "the  dead  level  of  slavery"  into  a  state  of 
division  into  classes,  the  originally  simple  system 
in  vogue  at  Hampton  became  more  complex.  The 
coming  of  the  Indians,  too,  made  necessary  changes 
in  the  industrial  departments  that  were  productive 
of  widespread  results.  Indeed,  the  coming  of  the 
Indians  marked  a  distinct  step  in  the  advance  of 
the  Hampton  school.  Next  to  the  tour  of  the 


214  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Jubilee  Singers,  it  brought  the  school  into  wider 
prominence  than  any  event.*  The  War  Department 
undertook  the  tuition  charges  of  these  new  pupils, 
but  General  Armstrong  assumed  the  other  expenses. 
The  Indians,  unlike  the  Negroes,  were  not  inured 
to  work,  but  held  it  in  lofty  contempt,  an  attitude 
General  Armstrong  thought  as  fatal  to  their  devel- 
opment as  the  laziness  of  the  Negro.  He  quotes 
in  a  report,  with  approval,  the  words  of  Secretary 
Teller: 

"The  Indian  question  will  never  be  settled  till  you 
make  the  Indian  blister  his  hands.  No  people  ever 
emerged  from  barbarism  that  did  not  emerge  through 
labor." 

He  himself  said  on  this  subject: 

"The  Indian's  endowment  of  land  and  his  right  to 
rations  is  like  a  millstone  around  his  neck,  for  only  when 
it  is  work  or  starve  will  the  average  man  work."  f 

So,  although  the  Government  paid  the  bills,  the 
red  man  had  to  go  to  work;  and  his  work,  directed 
toward  trade-learning  rather  than  toward  a  finished 
product,  gave  an  impetus  to  technical  training 
throughout  the  school. 

Many  regarded  the  introduction  of  the  Indians 

*The  Indians  first  came  in  1878,  brought  byCapt.  R.  H.  Pratt, 
then  an  officer  of  the  regular  army  in  charge  of  Indian  prisoners 
at  St.  Augustine,  Florida.  Seeing  their  deplorable  condition, 
he  wrote  Armstrong  for  permission  for  seventeen  of  them  to  enter 
the  institute. 

t  Referring  to  agency  system.     Report  of  1887. 


At  Hampton*     J870-J890  215 

as  a  very  doubtful  experiment.  The  mingling  of 
races  in  close  companionship  and  the  added  financial 
needs  the  Indians  would  bring  contained  possibilities 
of  trouble.  But  on  the  whole  it  proved  to  be  a  wise 
step  and  justified  Armstrong's  confidence  in  the 
Hampton  school.  The  new  race  was  assimilated 
and  became  an  element  of  strength.  No  serious 
trouble  occurred  between  the  races,  and  the  effect 
on  Negroes  and  Indians  alike  was  to  broaden  their 
conceptions  of  man  and  duty.  The  coming  of  the 
Indians  also  brought  the  institute  into  closer 
relations  with  its  southern  neighbors,  who  had  a 
sympathy  with  the  Indian  which  they  could  not 
summon  for  the  Negro.  From  this  time  General 
Armstrong  was  able  to  rely  confidently  upon  some 
of  his  neighbors  for  support  in  his  work. 

Not  upon  all,  however.  The  Hampton  Institute 
was  not  free  from  those  attacks  upon  its  work  and 
character  which  usually  attend  successful  enterprises. 
In  1886  a  complaint  was  made  by  some  persons 
living  in  the  vicinity  of  the  school  that  they  were 
oppressed  by  its  industrial  competition.  General 
Armstrong  personally  urged  at  Richmond  the 
appointment  of  an  investigating  committee,  which 
was  asked  for  by  the  complainants,  and  gave  every 
opportunity  to  get  at  the  truth.  The  investigation 
ended  in  a  hearty  endorsement  of  the  Institute. 
General  Armstrong  never  allowed  this  attack  to 
influence  his  belief  in  the  kindliness  of  his  neighbors, 
saying  publicly  that  "the  Hampton  Institute  was 


216  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

generously  recognized  and  appreciated,  and  that 
the  investigation,  so  far  from  doing  harm,  had 
done  much  good." 

Two  years  later  more  serious  charges  were  made 
against  General  Armstrong  and  his  work  for  the 
Indians.  These  attacks  followed  soon  after  his  par- 
tial recovery  from  a  severe  illness  in  1886,  continued 
for  months  in  the  form  of  oft-repeated  newspaper 
charges,  disproved  only  to  be  repeated  again,  and 
wore  greatly  upon  him.  • 

His  attitude  toward  all  these  attacks  was  char- 
acteristic. 

"Our  point,"  he  wrote,  "is  not  to  clear  ourselves, 
but  to  bring  out  the  whole  truth.  None  of  us  are  too 
good  for  an  investigation.  .  .  .  Any  assumption 
of  correctness  is  intolerable.  I  wish  always  bottom 
facts.  In  missionary  work  especially  the  whole  truth 
should  always  be  told." 

Instead  of  making  formal  defense  of  the  insti- 
tution, he  requested  a  committee  of  investigation 
to  be  sent  from  Washington,  and  invited  men 
whose  opinion  carried  local  weight  to  go  over  the 
ground  fully  and  freely  with  him. 

"This  is  the  point  of  issue,"  he  wrote;  "not  to  hurrah 
for  Hampton,  but  to  see  that  things  are  fairly  looked 
into." 

A  few  recommendations  were  made  by  the  com- 
mittee and  were  promptly  carried  out. 


At  Hampton*    J870-J890  217 

So  as  an  experiment  of  which  the  details  must 
be  worked  out  from  day  to  day  and  which  was 
liable  to  mistakes  and  misconstruction,  General 
Armstrong's  work  grew. 

"Though  every  forward  step  has  *)een  r,  struggle," 
he  wrote  in  1890,  "the  school  has  been  a  growth,  deep- 
rooted  and  healthy.  We  are  here  not  merely  to  educate 
students,  but  to  make  men  and  women  out  of  individ- 
uals belonging  to  the  down-trodden  and  despised  races ; 
to  make  of  them  not  accomplished  scholars,  but  to  build 
up  character  and  manhood;  to  fit  the  best  among  them 
to  become  teachers  and  apply  the  best  educational 
methods,  for  the  work  is  a  rounded  one,  touching 
the  whole  circle  of  life  and  demanding  the  best  energies 
of  those  who  take  it  up.  In  God's  providence  it  has 
been  especially  given  to  this  nation  as  a  work  to  be 
done,  and  to  be  done  now,  not  only  for  reasons  of 
honor  and  humanity,  but  from  the  lower  motives  of 
self-preservation,  for  our  own  safety  as  much  as  for 
the  good  of  those  who  are  entreating  us  for  help.'* 


CHAPTER  VIII 
IN  THE  NORTH.     1870-1890 

NOT  more  than  half  of  this  period  of  twenty 
years  was  spent  at  Hampton.  To  organize,  stim- 
ulate and  oversee  the  growing  institution  would 
seem  to  be  work  enough  for  one  man;  but  since 
the  very  existence  of  Hampton  depended  on  money, 
and  money  must  be  sought  where  it  could  be  found, 
General  Armstrong  became  an  equally  familiar 
figure  in  the  streets  of  Boston  and  on  the  shell 
roads  of  Hampton.  Two-thirds  of  his  immense 
energies  were  spent  in  getting  money  to  carry  out 
the  ideas  that  his  brain  was  continually  evolving — 
money  in  amounts  generally  so  inadequate  to  his 
needs  as  to  render  necessary  a  constant  adjustment 
of  ends  to  means,  modifications  of  his  ideals  within 
the  bounds  of  what  he  could  do  with  the  money  he 
had — a  limitation  ever  present  with  the  idealist  who 
not  only  dreams  but  does. 

In  his  early  trips  to  the  North  he  had  to  deal 
with  a  public  weary  with  the  story  of  southern 
outrages. 

1 '  I  am  getting  up  meetings  in  the  various  cities  of 
eastern  Massachusetts,"  he  wrote  to  a  brother  in  1870. 

218 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  219 

"People  here  have  gotten  tired  of  the  Negro  question, 
and  wind  and  tide  are  against  me.  It  is  fearful  to 
throw  oneself  against  the  popular  current,  and  it  is 
the  most  exhausting  thing  I  ever  tried.  Northern 
people  are  so  busy  that  they  don't  know  what  is  the 
real  state  of  things  at  the  South.  The  story  of 
Ku-Klux  and  blood  is  so  familiar  that  no  one 
notices  it." 

These  early  appeals  were  made  at  a  time  when 
business  was  in  the  process  of  recuperation  after 
the  stress  of  war  time  and  when  charitable  people 
were  besieged  for  aid  to  those  left  helpless  by 
bereavement  or  disablement ;  moreover,  the  capabil- 
ities of  the  Negro  race  were  distrusted  at  this  time, 
when  the  excesses  of  the  reconstruction  period 
were  still  of  recent  occurrence ;  nor  were  people  gen- 
erally disposed  to  look  with  favor  on  a  theory  that 
at  Oberlin  and  kindred  schools  had  already  resulted 
unsuccessfully,*  the  theory  of  the  mingling  of  mental 
with  manual  work.  They  failed  to  see  what  Arm- 
strong had  already  clearly  perceived,  that,  rightly 
applied,  the  theory  of  education  by  training  the 
hand  was  in  a  short  time  to  affect  education  radically 
throughout  America;  that  it  would  at  length  take 
the  place  of  all  other  methods  in  the  training  of 
undeveloped  races. 

He  hoped  that  his  appeals  might  in  a  few  years 
bring  an  answer  adequate  to  the  needs  of  the  Negro, 
but  money  came  slowly. 

He  returned  again  and  again  to  his  home    at 

*  See  page  158. 


220  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Hampton,  between  his  money-raising  "campaigns," 
as  he  called  them,  hoping  to  be  able  to  rest  and 
organize  his  work  there,  and  to  enjoy  his  peaceful 
home  life  and  the  society  of  the  little  family  growing 
up  by  his  side.  He  soon  saw,  however,  that  if  the 
school  was  to  continue  its  growth  there  was  to  be 
no  end  to  this  effort  while  he  lived,  and  he  resigned 
with  sorrow  this  pleasant  anticipation.  His  early 
hope  he  expressed  in  a  letter  to  his  mother, 
written  August,  1870: 

"Just  as  soon  as  the  building,  Academic  Hall,  the 
first  large  building  on  the  grounds,  is  done,  I  must  pitch 
in  for  an  endowment  of  $200,000;  that  is  the  final 
struggle.  It  will  cost  me  terribly;  a  three  years'  cam- 
paign of  the  hardest  kind.  After  it  I  must  take  a  rest 
of  several  months  if  I  can  afford  it.  This  is  my  plan: 
get  the  endowment,  then  go  home  again.  Oh,  for  a 
sight  of  the  cocoanut  trees !" 

This  particular  plan  of  a  three  years'  campaign 
was  never  carried  out ;  after  each  stay  at  Hampton 
following  a  northern  trip  new  needs  would  press 
with  the  opening  of  the  school  term,  expenses 
incidental  to  growth  would  run  over  income,  and 
he  would  be  forced  to  leave  home  again  for  a  trip  to 
the  North. 

In  a  letter  to  his  mother  he  thus  describes  an 
early  tour: 

"I  was  told  I  must  expect  little  or  nothing,  but  I 
had  to  beg.  I  was  forced  to  get  money  to  pay  the 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  221 

pressing  way  of  the  school  or  let  it  go  to  the  wall,  and  at 
it  I  went  with  all  my  might  and  haven't  had  a  day's 
rest  for  two  months.  It  is  hard — this  begging;  it  takes 
all  one's  nervous  and  physical  strength,  even  when 
people  are  kind  and  polite,  as  they  generally  are.  It  is 
never  and  never  can  be  easy,  and  I  have  always  to  use 
all  my  strength,  fire  every  gun  in  order  to  bring  to  the 
hurried,  worried  business  men  that  powerful  influence 
that  alone  can  secure  money  in  a  place  like  Boston, 
where  for  every  dollar  that  even  the  richest  are  able  to 
give  there  are  ten  chances  to  put  it  to  good  use  and 
twenty  demands  for  it  from  one  source  or  another.  It 
is  amazing  how  hard  is  the  pressure  of  appeal  .and  yet 
how  polite  and  good-natured  most  people  are,  how 
patiently  they  listen  and  how  many  give  up  their  last 
spare  dollar  not  needed  for  personal  comfort.  Boston 
has  been  educated  to  giving  and  gives  splendidly.  But 
thousands  are  turned  away — few  succeed,  many  fail 
who  try  for  money,  just  as  in  the  business  world.  In  all 
this  howling  appeal  and  fearful  competition  of  charities 
I  have  been  making  the  best  fight  I  could — watching 
every  chance,  following  up  every  chance,  finding 
out  new  people,  making  new  friends  to  the  cause, 
talking  in  houses  and  in  churches,  at  parties  and  at 
dinner  tables,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  and  on  the 
whole  I  have  done  well.  ...  I  am  received  always 
in  the  pleasantest  way  by  the  best  people  and  have 
made  a  great  many  strong  friends.  Am  rushing 
about  all  the  time  and  necessity  is  after  me  sharp. 
.  .  .  Am  going  to  drive  things  while  there's  any 
life  in  me.  I  am  well  and  think  I  can  stand  it ;  success 
is  the  best  medicine  and  will  cure  me.  ...  I 
have  raised  several  thousand  dollars,  and  am  con- 
sidered to  have  had  remarkable  success,  considering 
the  times." 


222  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

There  was  at  the  time  of  these  first  trips  in  the 
North  a  group  of  persons  in  and  about  Boston  who 
had  been  prominent  in  war  and  sanitary  commis- 
sion affairs — men  and  women  of  mature  age,  social 
position  and  comfortable  incomes.  Most  of  this 
group  were  women,  the  men  of  their  generation 
being  deeply  engrossed  in  affairs  or  disabled  or 
killed  in  the  war.  Such  names  as  Quincy,  Wiggles- 
worth,  Cooper,  Paine,  Loring,  Bowditch,  Putnam, 
Fields,  Claflin,  Hemenway  and  Parkman  suggest 
this  group  of  public-spirited  citizens,  who  not  only 
gave  their  interest  and  money  to  help  the  cause, 
but  their  personal  friendship. 

This  friendship  began,  in  many  cases,  in  November, 
1871,  when  Mrs.  Augustus  Hemenway  asked  General 
Armstrong  and  his  young  wife  and  baby  to  visit 
her  in  Boston.  Under  her  social  guardianship 
General  and  Mrs.  Armstrong  heard  good  music 
and  drama  and  widened  greatly  their  circle  of 
acquaintance. 

A  cordial  personal  recognition  was  an  agreeable 
relief  from  the  strain  of  debt  and  financial  responsi- 
bility that  even  now  bore  him  down  with  a  crushing 
weight.  It  was  to  prove  not  only  a  pleasant  inci- 
dent in  his  career,  but  an  event  of  vital  importance 
to  his  work,  for  a  social  introduction  proved  to  be 
the  very  means  whereby  he  was  able  to  approach 
and  to  know  charitable  Boston.  He  saw  that  here 
was  an  opportunity  to  meet  the  people,  many  of 
whom  had  been  friends  to  the  rights  of  the  Negro 


In  the  North*    J870-J890  223 

when  abolitionism  was  unfashionable  and  who  were 
the  most  ready  of  all  in  the  North  to  help  and  under- 
stand his  work.  For  their  part,  they  saw  in  the 
freshness  and  vigor  of  the  man,  in  his  entire  absence 
of  selfish  ambition  and  in  his  notable  war  record 
promise  of  future  success.  They  were  attracted 
by  his  delight  in  working  for  the  right — his  youth- 
ful buoyancy  of  outlook  joined  to  intense  moral 
earnestness,  qualities  that  spoke  of  staying  power 
and  effectiveness.  The  man  who  could  say,  "  Isn't 
it  jolly  to  be  a  mounted  soldier  in  the  service  of 
the  Lord?"  would  never  desert  his  colors.  Later 
they  became  convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  his  plans, 
and  from  that  time  on  this  group  of  people  gave 
him  hearty  social  and  moral  backing  and  financial 
support  in  general,  though  the  great  fortunes  with 
which  universities  are  founded  were  not  theirs 
to  give. 

That  he  succeeded  early  in  persuading  men  and 
women  of  moral  influence  to  lend  their  support 
to  his  plans  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  on  January 
27,  1870,  his  first  public  meeting,  held  in  Music 
Hall,  Boston,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Hawaiian 
Club  of  Boston,  through  his  old  and  intimate  friend 
General  J.  F.  B.  Marshall,  was  presided  over  by 
Governor  Claflin,  and  attended  by  many  of  the 
philanthropic  people  of  Boston.  This  meeting 
marked  the  beginning  of  a  two  months'  campaign 
which  was  the  first  of  a  series  that  extended  over  a 
period  of  twenty  years. 


224  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

It  is  a  striking  comment  on  these  times,  as  General 
Armstrong  noted,  that  on  the  very  night  when 
this  meeting  was  held  which  marked  the  organiza- 
tion of  Hampton's  work  in  New  England,  all  that 
was  left  of  the  old  Abolition  Society  met  to  lay 
down  its  arms  and  give  up  its  organization,  resolv- 
ing that  nothing  remained  for  it  to  do.  "  It  failed 
to  see,"  as  General  Armstrong  says,  "that  every- 
thing remained.  Their  work  was  just  beginning 
when  slavery  was  abolished." 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  he  confined  himself 
to  making  friends  among  the  naturally  philan- 
thropic and  the  well-to-do  classes.  He  desired 
from  the  beginning  and  throughout  his  life  that 
his  work  should  be  the  work  of  the  people,  and 
such  to  a  peculiar  extent  it  was.  A  glance  at  the 
record  of  gifts  to  Hampton  for  this  period  of  twenty 
years  shows  that  the  majority  of  the  individual 
gifts  range  from  ten  to  fifty  dollars.  Poor  country 
churches  and  religious  societies  sent  small  sums 
yearly;  many  persons  gave  sparingly,  as  they  could 
afford  it,  out  of  moderate  incomes;  church  fairs 
and  Sunday-schools  sent  small  amounts  from  time 
to  time.  It  was  the  custom  in  many  New  England 
churches  to  take  up  a  quarterly  or  yearly  collec- 
tion for  Hampton,  grouping  it  with  their  contribu- 
tions to  foreign  missions  or  the  evangelization  of 
the  new  West.  Hampton  took  its  place  in  New 
England  as  a  charity  of  recognized  worth.  Clubs  or 
committees  were  organized  which  pledged  them- 


In  the  North*    J870-J890  225 

selves  to  send  a  fixed  sum  yearly;  a  scholarship 
or  a  small  sum  of  money  which  paid  the  tuition  of 
one  student  for  one  year  and  established  a  personal 
relation  between  giver  and  recipient  was  a  favorite 
mode  of  giving.  From  such  sources  about  one-half 
of  the  income  of  Hampton  was  derived  for  twenty 
years. 

Armstrong's  greatest  single  effort  to  enlist  public 
interest  was  the  tour  of  the  Hampton  Jubilee 
Singers,  beginning  in  February,  1872,  and  lasting 
until  June,  1875.  The  immediate  occasion  for  it 
was  the  pressing  need  first  felt  in  the  fall  of  1871 
for  better  accommodations  for  girls ;  but  as  early  as 
this  year  General  Armstrong  felt  the  need  of  a 
permanent  endowment  fund,  something  that  would 
yield  a  regular  interest  and  leave  him  more  time 
for  improving  the  school  itself.  The  singers  started 
on  their  long  tour  hoping  to  raise  a  sum  of  at  least 
$200,000  for  this  purpose. 

Many  obstacles  lay  before  them :  the  Fisk  Jubilee 
Singers,  aided  by  the  influence  of  the  American 
Missionary  Association,  had  just  finished  their 
series  of  concerts  in  the  North;  it  was  doubtful 
whether  the  enthusiasm  they  had  aroused  could 
be  awakened  so  soon  again  by  a  Negro  chorus. 
Speculators  assuming  the  name  of  jubilee  singers 
were  prejudicing  people  against  all  such  companies ; 
the  expense  of  the  trip  would  be  great ;  many  thought 
that  it  would  demoralize  the  student  singers  and 
thus  react  for  evil  on  the  school.  But  Armstrong 


226  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

had  made  up  his  mind  to  raise  the  needed  $200,000, 
and  relied  on  the  help  of  friends  in  the  North  and 
on  the  charm  of  that  music  which,  once  heard,  draws 
the  hearer  again  to  listen  to  its  wild  and  plaintive 
tones. 

February  13,  1872,  the  party  started.  General 
Armstrong  regarded  the  duration  of  the  tour  as 
indefinite,  expecting  to  extend  it  to  England  and 
California  if  it  was  successful.  The  party  traveled 
by  day  and  gave  their  concerts  generally  in  the 
evening,  taking  their  school-books  with  them  and 
studying  persistently  while  on  train  or  boat  in  order 
to  keep  up  with  their  classes.  Audiences,  indeed, 
were  not  so  large  as  those  that  gathered  to  listen  to 
the  Fisk  singers,  nor  were  the  sums  of  money  taken 
in  as  great.  At  the  close  of  the  first  year  $10,000 
was  sent  back  to  Hampton  as  net  proceeds.  The 
second  year  was  less  directly  profitable,  owing  to 
the  financial  panic  of  1874  and  1875,  ^ut  much  in- 
terest was  excited.  Over  7,000  copies  of  the  book, 
4 'Hampton  and  Its  Students,"  were  sold,  and  a  gift 
of  $10,000  was  made  for  the  completion  of  a  chapel 
for  general  gatherings.  Mrs.  Augustus  Hemenway 
and  Mrs.  S.  T.  Hooper,  of  Boston,  were  present 
at  many  of  the  concerts,  lent  their  valuable 
influence  and  prestige  to  the  undertaking,  and 
aided  in  many  ways  to  reduce  expenses  and  excite 
enthusiasm.  The  singers  gave  500  concerts, 
traveled  over  eighteen  States,  and  visited  Canada. 

The  tour  of  the  singers  did   little  to  start  an 


In  the  North*    J870-J890  227 

endowment  fund,  but  as  an  advertisement  it  was 
invaluable,  and  in  no  other  way  could  information 
about  Hampton  have  been  so  widely  diffused;  in 
no  other  way  could  the  acquaintance  of  Armstrong 
have  been  enlarged  so  rapidly.  It  was  the  first 
step  in  the  larger  life  of  the  Hampton  school.  It 
was  the  first  presentation  of  its  claim  upon  the 
whole  country  for  support.  After  this  tour  General 
Armstrong  was  no  longer  simply  the  principal 
of  a  struggling  Negro  school  in  Virginia;  he  became 
a  public  man  with  a  scope  of  influence  which 
increased  yearly  until  it  became  national. 

Already  in  the  midst  of  the  trip  he  perceived  the 
scope  of  his  work,  its  needs,  its  future  and  its  sure 
support,  and  wrote  to  the  editor  of  a  New  Bedford 
(Massachusetts)  newspaper: 

"I  enclose  a  circular  to  which  you  may,  I  hope,  call 
attention,  as  it  refers  to  a  very  important  movement 
and  one  which  would  probably  interest  your  readers. 
You  will  hear  of  it  anyhow,  and  I  write  to  anticipate 
rumor  and,  if  possible,  prevent  unpleasant  impressions 
liable  to  be  formed  from  my  going  into  such  an  enter- 
prise. 

''The  truth  is,  we  have,  as  Lincoln  used  to  say  of  the 
war,  a  'big  job'  on  our  hands.  It's  no  use  to  whine 
about  the  great  demand  for  means  to  lift  up  the  Negro 
race.  The  work  is  not  done;  it  is  given  us  as  a  nation 
to  do.  It  is  the  duty  of  no  section,  but  of  every  one. 
Practically  those  who  care  for  it,  wherever  they  live, 
do  and  will  help;  those  who  don't  care  will  not.  The 
helpers  are  comparatively  few.  The  money  contributed 


228  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

has  been  in  small  sums — rarely  has  a  large  amount  been 
given.  But  aggressive,  powerful  institutions  that  make 
their  impress  upon  the  populations  need  large  endow- 
ments and  extensive  buildings,  so  that  students  from  all 
quarters  can  be  massed  together,  instructed,  inspired 
with  vital  truth,  and  sent  out  as  builders  of  a  better 
civilization.  Hampton  aims  to  do  the  Negro  race  a 
real  good  by  supplying  a  host  of  thoughtful,  trained, 
practical  teachers,  who  have  been  drilled  not  only  in 
books,  but  in  shops  and  on  the  farm,  in  the  kitchen 
and  in  the  sewing-room.  These  will  teach  not  only 
spelling  and  arithmetic,  but  the  more  important  lessons 
of  respect  for  labor,  and  they  will  impart  of  their 
own  essential  manhood  and  womanhood  to  those  whom 
they  teach.  The  Negro  has  been  taught  to  work,  not 
to  despise  it ;  he  has  the  habits  of  labor,  but  no  enthusi- 
asm for  it ;  he  is  satisfied  with  his  job  if  only  his  employer 
is.  The  true  laborer  may  not  love  hard  work,  but  he 
does  his  work  well  for  the  sake  of  doing  it  well  and 
takes  pride  in  it. 

"We  wish  to  spread  broadcast  right  ideas  of  life  and 
labor;  to  unite  morality  and  religion  in  the  holy  tie 
that  binds  them  and  that  is  not  recognized  here:  for 
the  divorce  is  complete. 

"Hundreds  of  teachers,  apostles  of  a  true  Christianity 
and  civilization,  are  needed.  We  are  compelled  con- 
stantly to  say  to  applications  from  all  parts  of  Virginia, 
'We  cannot  send  you  any  more  teachers.'  Four  times 
as  many  as  we  can  supply  are  needed  now,  and  school- 
houses  are  empty  and  thousands  untaught  for  want  of 
them.  Yet  we  have  been  forced,  for  want  of  room, 
to  reject  this  year  thirty-five  young  men  and  women 
who  were  eager  to  come  and  fit  themselves  to  teach. 
We  have  encamped  thirty  in  old  army  tents  in  the  open 
field,  and  they  have  been  for  months  in  terrible  freezing 


In  the  North*    J870-J890  229 

weather  and  exposed  to  howling  winds.  But  not  a 
murmur.  They'll  stand  it  a  good  while  yet — all  this 
and  all  next  winter  if  necessary.  We  expect  to  have 
seventy  or  eighty  men  under  canvas  next  year.  But 
we  cannot  put  women  in  tents.  We  have  planned  a 
large  dormitory,  including  sixty-eight  girls'  rooms,  a 
chapel,  sewing-room,  etc.,  capable  of  accommodating 
nearly  140  women.  It  will  cost  complete  $75,000. 
We  must  have  it  next  fall  or  send  back  fifty 
colored  girls  to  the  pine-barrens  and  plantations. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  beg.  We  must  help  ourselves. 
We  propose  to  give  concerts,  singing  the  old  Negro 
spirituals,  of  which  we  have  collected  an  entirely 
new  and  wonderfully  beautiful  number,  and  with  the 
avails  of  these  concerts  raise  the  walls  of  a  building  for 
the  education  of  colored  women.  I  believe  the  men 
and  the  women  of  the  North  will  help  us.  They  will 
have  the  chance.  We  will  give  our  first  concert  in 
Washington  next  Saturday  night,  the  i5th  inst.,  and 
will  advance  upon  Philadelphia,  New  York  and  Boston. 
It  is  a  venture  and  may  not  be  successful.  But  it 
seems  the  thing  to  try,  for  there's  a  power,  a  vividness, 
a  genuineness  in  this  fast-dying-out  music  that  excels 
everything  ever  composed.  It  is  the  echo  of  old  times ; 
it  is  full  of  wailing  tenderness  and  passionate  faith. 
It  will  soon  be  gone.  Why  should  it  not  be  used  as  a 
reminder '  to  the  North  that  there  really  was  such  a 
thing  as  slavery  and  that  its  terrible  and  its  worst 
effects  are  upon  the  Negro  yet? 

The  degradation  of  centuries  cannot  be  thrown  off 
in  a  decade  or  generation.  Negro  civilization  must 
be  a  slow  growth  of  time  and  of  persistent,  untiring 
effort.  Hampton  is  organized  on  a  permanent  basis 
in  order  to  accomplish  its  end,  which  is  to  see  the 
Negro  through." 


230  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

Nothing  will  maintain  a  man  under  severe  strain 
so  well  as  inspiration  and  a  sense  of  humor. 
He  wrote  to  his  class  secretary  from  Hampton, 
September  30,  1874: 

"In  obedience  to  your  instruction  I  have  the  honor 
to  inform  you  of  myself,  life,  wife  and  children  as 
follows :  I  have  a  remarkable  machine  for  the  elevation 
of  our  colored  brethren  on  which  I  mean  to  take  out  a 
patent.  Put  in  a  raw  plantation  darky  and  he  comes 
out  a  gentleman  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Our 
problem  is  how  to  skip  three  centuries  in  the  line  of 
development  and  to  atone  for  the  loss  and  injustice  of 
the  ages.  About  $370,000  have  been  expended  here 
since  I  took  hold  in  the  fall  of  1867. 

"  I  have  been  in  the  traveling  show  business  for  the 
last  two  years;  have  given  over  300  concerts  with  the 
Hampton  students  (ex-slaves)  in  behalf  of  the  school. 

"This  is  a  rough  and  terrible  fight  with  difficulties, 
but  I  think  I'm  on  top. 

"I  am  the  most  fortunate  man  in  the  world  in  my 
family.  I  have  a  wife  and  two  little  girls — one  two 
and  the  other  four  years  of  age.  My  'jewels'  are  the 
rarest  and  richest  on  the  planet. 

"'Sixty-two'  men  will  always  be  welcome  at  my 
home  on  Hampton  Roads — your  reverence  [the  class 
secretary]  especially.  I  have  reserved  the  choicest 
oysters  in  this  paradise  of  oysters  for  the  exclusive  use 
of  the  members  of  that  class. 

"The  stake  of  my  destiny  is  planted  here,  and  I  have 
never  regretted  it;  this  is  part  of  the  war  on  a  higher 
plane  and  with  spiritual  weapons;  it  will  not  soon  end 
and  success  is  yet  to  be  won.  I  cannot  understand  the 
prevailing  views  of  the  war  among  pious  and  intelligent 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  231 

Americans.  It  is  simply  barbaric — to  whip  the  South 
and  go  home  rejoicing;  to  build  monuments  of  victory, 
leaving  one-third  of  their  countrymen  in  the  depths 
of  distress.  The  case  is  chiefly  moral  and  the  duty  sits 
very  lightly  on  the  general  conscience." 

He  paid  the  price  for  celebrity  which  most  public 
men  must  pay,  however,  in  the  sacrifice  of  home 
life  and  in  enforced  separation  from  his  family. 
This  separation  was  the  more  painful  because  his 
wife's  health  had  begun  to  fail.  In  1878  Mrs.  Arm- 
strong died,  leaving  two  little  girls  six  and  eight 
years  of  age.  Here  ended  such  broken  home  life 
as  this  naturally  most  domestic  of  men  had  been 
able  to  enjoy  in  his  free  moments;  and  Armstrong 
became  a  kind  of  wanderer,  rinding  in  his  life  at 
Hampton  absorption  in  routine  work  and  in  the  time 
spent  at  the  North  a  sympathy  and  companion- 
ship in  the  society  of  congenial  friends  that  was 
lacking  in  his  own  home. 


The  years  1878  to  1890  may  be  especially  called 
the  constructive  period  of  the  Hampton  school; 
during  these  twelve  years  alone  eighteen  large 
buildings,  at  a  cost  of  $423,400,  were  erected  and 
land  costing  $13,500  was  purchased.  In  round 
numbers  the  expenditures  for  "  plant"  alone  during 


23 2  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

these  years,  exclusive  of  running  expenses,  amounted 
to  $500,000;  from  300  students  in  1878  the  number 
increased  to  678  in  1886,  a  number  not  since  (in 
1902)  exceeded.  A  natural  consequence  of  this 
rapid  growth  was  a  great  increase  in  running 
expenses;  and  General  Armstrong  was  obliged  to 
raise  yearly  from  $50,000  to  $80,000  merely  to  keep 
the  wolf  from  the  door. 

Under  the  pressure  of  this  necessity,  he  addressed 
himself  with  new  care  to  his  work  in  the  North, 
like  the  hero  of  a  story  which  he  was  fond  of  telling, 
and  which  embodied  what  he  called  his  ''rule  of 
conduct": 

"Once  there  was  an  old  darky  who  could  not  be 
dissuaded  from  hunting  in  an  empty  'possum  hole. 
'Ain't  no  'possum  in  dat  hole?  Dey's  just  got  to  be, 
'cause  dey's  nuffin*  in  de  house  fer  supper."1 

So  the  "'possum  hole"  of  the  North  was  again 
and  again  invaded.  He  wrote  to  a  friend,  engaged 
like  himself  in  the  education  of  the  northern  public : 
"Punch  the  public  or  you  get  nothing;  give  them 
no  peace  till  you  get  your  money."  A  certain 
obstinacy  of  the  sort  that  fights  blindly  to  the  end 
was  aroused  by  these  constant  struggles  against 
competition,  lack  of  interest  and  the  prophecies 
of  failure  which  often  came  to  his  ears. 

"The  dry  bones  of  a  thousand  failures  are  in  our 
path,"  he  said.  "The  wet  blanket  of  endless  disap- 
pointments has  been  thrown  on  us.  Men  say,  '  You 
can't  do  it.'  Experienced  men  shake  their  heads;  but 


In  the  North*    1870-J890  233 

G [a  missionary  friend]  is  going  to  take  hold  and 

worry  the  Christian  Church  till  it  planks  down  the 
money,  and  it's  of  no  use.  Saint  and  sinner  must,  side 
by  side,  jerk  the  old  thing  till  it  moves.  Infidel  and  the 
elect  will  drop  their  mites  into  the  contribution  box 
till  it  is  filled.  We  are  doing  this  over  a  vortex  of 
financial  calamity,  into  which  we  hope  not  to  fall." 

In  his  appeal  for  money  he  always  made  an 
impassioned  plea,  not  for  a  direct  gift  of  money 
to  relieve  the  needs  of  the  Negro,  but  for  money  to 
help  him  to  help  himself  through  a  system  of  indus- 
trial labor.  Knowing  that  people  are  best  reached 
through  their  emotions,  he  generally  took  with  him 
a  small  band  of  singers,  who  could  touch  with  their 
pathetic  songs  hearts  that  remained  impervious  to 
any  other  appeal ;  and  perceiving,  too,  that  until  a 
cause  is  personified  it  has  little  power  to  touch  the 
hearts  of  men,  he  always  included  in  his  program  a 
few  telling  recitals  of  personal  experiences.  The  aim 
of  these  northern  trips  was  not  primarily  to  bring 
home  money,  but,  in  his  own  words,  "to  enlist  the 
interest  of  the  friends  of  southern  education,  and 
if  possible  to  give  direction  to  the  benefactions  of 
those  disposed  to  aid  in  the  elevation  of  the  lately 
enfranchised  race." 

He  first  organized  his  campaigns  on  paper,  and 
sent  an  agent  before  him  to  arrange  for  places  of 
meetings;  then  he  himself,  with  a  quartet  of 
Negroes,  followed — accompanied,  perhaps,  by  two 
Indian  students.  Their  tours  extended  sometimes 


234  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

as  far  west  as  Chicago  or  St.  Louis,  but  usually 
centered  round  about  the  towns  of  New  England 
and  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  If 
the  meeting  was  in  a  church  at  a  regular  Sunday 
or  week-day  evening  service,  a  collection  was  taken ; 
if  in  a  private  house,  none  was  taken.  General 
Armstrong  utilized  the  interest  felt  by  almost  every 
one  in  the  slave  songs,  the  desire  of  young  people 
to  see  an  Indian,  and  the  philanthropic  sympathies 
of  many  toward  the  freedmen,  to  draw  audiences, 
which  gathered  in  elegant  private  drawing-rooms, 
in  hotel  parlors,  in  churches  and  in  schools.  To 
them  spoke  the  little  band,  ever  vitalized  into  new 
enthusiasm  by  the  spiritual  passion  which  General 
Armstrong  diffused  like  an  atmosphere  about  him. 

"I  must  win,"  he  said.  "I  can't  but  see  that  many 
put  faith  in  me;  it  would  be  wrong  to  humanity  to  fail, 
and  the  way  is  clear.  God  has  not  darkened  the  way, 
but  His  hand  points  to  a  steep  and  craggy  height — it 
must  be  climbed — I  will  climb  it." 

To  infuse  enthusiasm  into  half-alive  interests 
seemed  to  be  the  work  to  which  he  was  especially 
dedicated  by  nature. 

"It  [enthusiasm]  is  a  scarce  article  always,"  he 
wrote.  "Everybody  is  'interested'  in  everything  that 
is  good.  We  all  are  in  the  elevation  of  the  Hottentots 
or  that  the  Marquesas  Islanders  should  have  shirts  !" 

His  companion    for  twelve  years  in    this  work 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  235 

of  energizing  passive  wills,  Reverend  Hollis  Burke 
Frissell,  thus  describes  a  meeting  which  may  be 
considered  typical: 

"When  the  other  speeches  had  been  made,  General 
Armstrong  produced  some  large  diagrams  and  pictures 
of  the  new  buildings.  People  were  asked  to  take  rooms 
for  furnishing  at  $15  each.  He  was  so  rapid  in  his 
utterance  that  the  audience  could  hardly  hear  one 
word  in  ten  which  he  spoke,  but  he  was  so  intense  that 
they  were  interested  and  gave  the  furnishing  for  the 
rooms.  I  think  from  $15,000  to  $20,000  were  sub- 
scribed that  night.  His  struggle  to  be  deliberate  in 
speaking  was  always  interesting.  He  would  walk  on  to 
the  stage  in  a  very  quiet  way  and  commence  slowly  and 
go  faster  and  faster  as  he  got  into  his  subject.  He 
always  thought  it  wise  to  present  facts,  statements  of 
what  had  been  done,  rather  than  philosophical  dis- 
quisitions and  race  and  educational  problems." 

Another  who  often  attended  these  meetings  as 
a  listener  says: 

"I  suppose  that  every  lover  of  General  Armstrong 
recalls  some  special  incident  which  seems  most  entirely 
typical  of  the  man's  life  and  heart.  For  my  part,  I 
think  oftenest  of  one  of  those  scenes  in  his  many  begging 
journeys  to  the  North.  It  was  at  a  little  suburban 
church  far  down  a  side  street  on  one  winter  night  in 
the  midst  of  a  driving  storm  of  sleet.  There  was,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  no  congregation  present;  a  score  or 
so  of  humble  people,  showing  no  sign  of  any  means  to 
contribute,  were  scattered  through  the  empty  spaces, 
and  a  dozen  restless  boys  kicked  their  heels  in  the  front 


236  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

pew.  Then  in  the  midst  of  this  emptiness  and  hope- 
lessness up  rose  the  worn,  gaunt  soldier  as  bravely  and 
gladly  as  if  a  multitude  were  hanging  upon  his  words, 
and  his  deep-sunk  eyes  looked  out  beyond  the  bleakness 
of  the  scene  into  the  world  of  his  ideals,  and  the  cold 
little  place  was  aglow  with  the  fire  that  was  in  him, 
and  it  was  like  the  scene  on  the  Mount,  that  was  not  any 
less  wonderful  and  glistening  because  only  three  undis- 
cerning  followers  were  permitted  to  see  the  glory."  * 

When  he  spoke,  in  hall,  church,  theater  or 
parlor,  his  speech  gushed  forth  with  the  ease  of  the 
born  orator;  but  rapid  as  it  was,  it  could  not  keep 
up  with  his  thoughts,  which  seemed  ever  pressing 
it  outward  and  onward.  Yet  it  was  not  the  flow- 
ing style  of  his  contemporary,  Phillips  Brooks. 
His  ideas  were  shot  forth  in  brief,  compact  sen- 
tences, not  distinguished  so  much  by  logical  sequence 
as  by  their  power  to  throw  flash-lights  of  truth 
on  different  phases  of  the  subjects  he  touched. 
Once,  in  commenting  on  a  certain  discussion  held 
by  a  number  of  ministers,  he  unintentionally  char- 
acterized his  own  style,  saying: 

"Their  discussion  was  rather  plain  and  perky.  Not 
one  of  them  took  the  subject  up  and  shook  it  as  a 
terrier  dog  shakes  a  rat." 

No  side  of  his  work  is  more  characteristic  than 
his  persistent  effort  through  times  of  financial  stress 
or  in  apparently  unprofitable  situations.  He  said: 

*  Reverend  Francis  G.  Peabody,  in  an  address  delivered 
Founders'  Day,  1898. 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  237 

"Do  men  give  more  money  to  good  work  when  they 
make  the  most  or  when  they  think  the  most?  For 
twenty-three  years  I  have  worked  for  a  charity,  through 
sharp  times  and  through  prosperous  seasons,  but  the 
times  have  made  very  little  difference.  Nothing  extra 
is  to  be  expected  for  the  Lord's  work  in  'flush  times,' 
and  a  certain  fine  spirit  carries  it  through  the  darkest 
day." 

One  gets  an  interesting  view  of  his  own  attitude 
toward  this  unceasing  labor  of  money-raising  in 
the  following  extract  from  a  letter  to  the  Southern 
Workman: 

"  We  are  now  on  our  way  to  Columbus  for  our  thirtieth 
meeting,  having  since  our  first,  at  Scranton,  Pennsyl- 
vania, on  November  nth,  which  was  most  successful 
and  satisfactory,  held  meetings  in  the  cities  of  Boston, 
New  York,  Cleveland  (Ohio),  Detroit,  Milwaukee, 
Madison,  Chicago,  Indianapolis  and  Cincinnati.  We 
are  to  end  with  Columbus,  Pittsburg,  New  York  City 
and  Germantown,  Pennsylvania,  on  December  nth. 
Our  party  consists  of  Reverend  Mr.  Frissell  and  myself, 
with  our  quartet,  two  of  whom,  Major  Boykin  and 
Mr.  Daggs,  are  also  speakers,  and  two  Indian  boys. 
Our  main  object  has  been  to  create  interest  rather  than 
to  collect  money,  and  yet  the  plate  collections,  kindly 
volunteered  at  the  end  of  most  of  the  meetings,  will 
probably  bring  a  few  hundred  dollars  over  expenses. 
A  few  seventy-dollar  scholarships  have  been  secured. 
Presbyterian,  Episcopal,  Congregational,  Baptist  and 
other  churches  have  been  most  hospitably  opened 
everywhere  without  expense  to  us.  Clergymen  of 
various  denominations  have  usually  honored  the  plat- 
form and  taken  part  with  us  in  hearty  and  cordial  ways. 


S&muel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

The  rich  chords  of  the  old  slave  music  have  floated 
away  into  the  arches  of  church  and  cathedral,  or  been 
echoed  by  the  walls  of  plain  'meeting  houses'  with 
equally  touching  effect,  sustaining  always  their  fitness 
and  dignity.  To  the  simple  and  original  thoughts  of 
the  speakers  we  also  owed  much.  The  first  two  speeches 
are  somewhat  personal  and  descriptive;  the  last  two 
are  broader  in  outlook  and  more  general  in  statement, 
and  we  found  they  are  quite  as  appropriate  for  Sundays 
as  for  weekday  services,  for  they  are  genuine  and 
straightforward,  showing  that  they  are  the  honest 
outcome  of  the  speaker's  experience.  The  endeavor 
to  create  a  breadth  of  interest  had  been  one  of  our 
aspirations.  Our  claims  are  second  to  those  of  local 
charities  and  denominational  societies  created  in  the 
interest  of  the  two  races  whom  we  represent;  churches 
as  such  do  not  help  Hampton,  but  individuals  in  them 
are  our  help  and  strength.  We  always,  I  think, 
strengthen  rather  than  weaken  the  local  effort  for 
Indian  and  Negro,  and  have  done  almost  as  much  good 
for  other  schools  as  for  our  own.  Our  point  has  been 
to  make  a  better  and  broader  hope  for  and  interest 
in  both  races.  But  it  is  of  little  use  to  excite  momentary 
interest  unless  this  is  followed  up  by  personal  effort, 
and  there  is  seldom  any  one  to  do  this,  though  it  some- 
times happens  that  some  listener  is  moved  to  undertake 
it  as  a  labor  of  love.  Those  willing  to  work  have 
already  all  that  they  can  do.  I  never  realized  more 
fully  how  true  it  is  that  Christian  churches  are  '  centers 
of  work.'  Pulpits  are  used  so  much  as  advertising 
mediums  that  printed  Sunday  bulletins  are  introduced 
instead  and  work  well.  A  money  harvest,  like  any  other, 
comes  from  cultivation  of  the  ground.  We  sow  seed, 
much  of  which  would  bear  fruit  if  attended  to,  but  at 
the  moment  it  is  always  impossible  to  estimate  as  to 


In  the  North.    I870-J890  239 

the  effect  of  any  meeting,  for  there  may  be  far-off 
results  of  which  we  see  no  present  evidence.  The 
maxim  of  war  that  'one  shot  in  five  hundred  hits' 
often  occurs  to  me.  Always,  too,  it  has  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  an  enlightened  public  sentiment  is  at  the 
foundation  of  all  good  public  effort.  From  this  point  of 
view  the  educational  value  of  our  thirty-five  meetings 
more  than  justified  what  they  cost  in  time  and  money. 
The  usually  good  audiences  represent  only  a  small 
part  of  those  influenced.  Newspaper  notes  and  reports 
have  reached  hundreds  of  thousands,  and  though  only 
glanced  at  by  most  readers,  are  on  the  side  of  hope  and 
faith  in  our  'despised  races.'  It  is  true  that  all  this 
is  only  a  'drop  in  the  bucket,'  but  drop  by  drop  the 
bucket  is  filled.  Ours  is  one  of  many  influences  by 
which  the  Negro  and  Indian  questions  are  kept  before 
the  people.  During  the  first  twenty  years  after  the 
war  magazines  and  newspapers  contained  little  dis- 
cussions of  the  'race  question';  now  books,  pamphlets 
and  articles  on  it  are  constantly  appearing,  and  most 
of  them  have  only  impracticable  solutions  to  offer, 
such  as  disenfranchisement  or  deportation  of  the 
blacks,  etc.  As  an  object  lesson,  therefore,  our  four 
speeches  are  always  telling.  The  two  Negroes  and  their 
two  Indian  companions  stand  for  tens  of  thousands 
behind  them,  who  only  need  a  fair  chance  to  become 
good  citizens.  They  speak  their  own  thoughts  and 
words,  not  written  for  them,  and  their  appeal  is  strong. 
'  Give  us  a  chance  to  make  men  and  women  of  ourselves  ' 
is  all  they  ask.  .  .  .  The  study  of  audiences  is 
interesting,  and  we  are  struck  by  differences  as  we  go 
west  and  in  the  churches  in  which  we  speak.  There 
are  almost  always  a  lot  of  small  boys  in  front,  who 
come  to  get  a  good  look  at  the  Indians,  and  can  hardly 
realize  that  these  tall,  manly,  uniformed  young  men  are 


240  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

the  objects  of  their  curiosity.  They  are  a  sure  test 
of  the  meeting;  if  it  is  too  long,  their  gaze  wanders  and 
they  finally  fall  asleep.  While  their  eyes  are  still  open 
we  know  all  is  well.  The  newspapers  are  as  a  rule 
ready  to  lend  a  hand  to  a  good  cause  and  have  been 
uniformly  kind  and  liberal  in  their  motives,  but  there 
is  a  marked  difference  in  reporters,  some  catching  the 
spirit  of  things  while  others  merely  state  the  facts. 
The  freshness  and  vigor  of  the  student  speakers  and 
singers,  after  thirty-five  meetings  of  the  same  kind, 
are  remarkable.  No  sign  of  weakening  or  of  parrot- 
like  repetition  can  be  seen — each  new  audience  is  a 
stimulus  that  brings  one  up  to  his  best.  School  studies 
are  continued  in  the  cars  and  at  hotels.  A  month  out 
is  a  serious  thing,  and  would  put  the  boys  hopelessly 
back  in  their  studies  did  they  not  work  over  their 
books  every  day  from  three  to  five  hours. 

' '  I  notice  a  better  feeling  of  late  toward  well-appearing 
colored  people.  All  hotels  do  not  welcome  our  party, 
but  we  can  always  get  good  places.  On  the  whole, 
prejudice  seems  to  be  slowly  giving  way.  There  is  a 
marked  difference  between  to-day  and  1873,  when  the 
Hampton  singers  were  out  on  their  campaign  of  three 
and  a  half  years  to  erect  Virginia  Hall.  I  am  sure  that 
the  present  expedition  has  done  good ;  the  manly  bearing 
of  the  students  has  been  marked  and  their  appearance 
at  table  commended.  There  has  been  no  friction 
whatever,  only  kindness  and  good  will  from  first  to 
last.  Things  are  improving  along  the  whole  line,  too 
slowly  for  some,  but  that  revolutions  do  not  go  back- 
ward is  strikingly  shown  in  recent  American  history." 

On  these  trips  he  denied  himself,  for  economy's 
sake,  the  ordinary  ameliorations  of  travel,  rarely 
even  taking  a  parlor  car.  He  habitually  read  or 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  241 

wrote  while  riding  in  trains,  and  thus  it  was  that 
he  was  able  to  keep  up  the  wide  range  of  reading 
which  held  him  in  touch  with  men  of  widely  varied 
interests.  In  traveling  he  often  went  to  the 
same  hotels  as  his  colored  students,  refusing  offers 
of  private  hospitality  from  a  sense  of  loyalty  to  the 
race  who  had  responded  so  nobly  to  his  efforts  in 
their  behalf. 

General  Armstrong  felt  that  the  effort  of  raising 
money  by  such  means  as  these,  difficult  as  they 
were,  should  never  be  completely  abandoned;  for 
he  feared  that  the  Hampton  school,  once  comforta- 
bly well  off,  would  become  an  "easy"  place  for  a 
young  man  or  woman  to  get  an  education,  and 
that  the  North,  once  free  from  constant  appeals  to 
aid,  would  become  indifferent  to  the  needs  of  the 
Negro  and  the  Indian.  This  feeling,  coupled  with 
his  always  earnest  desire  to  have  a  fund  that  would 
"  lessen  the  severe  and  in  more  ways  than  one  costly 
labor  of  collecting  income,  give  the  school  a  life  of 
its  own,  independent  of  any  one  man's  life  or  power, 
and  better  secure  it  against  exigencies,"  caused  him 
at  times  to  speak  in  ways  that  appeared  incon- 
sistent, but  it  will  readily  be  seen  that  his  thought 
was  simple ;  he  desired  partial,  not  complete  endow- 
ment. 

In  the  course  of  these  "begging"  trips — his  own 
designation — there  .was  necessarily,  as  his  acquaint- 
ance became  larger,  a  vast  amount  of  individual 
work,  carried  on  by  means  of  personal  calls  at  the 


242  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

houses  or  offices  of  business  men  or  by  means  of 
letters.  It  was  his  habit  not  to  ask  directly  for 
money,  but  to  present  his  cause  and  let  it  plead 
for  itself,  but  there  were  times  when  a  more  direct 
method  was  necessary. 

"I  always  feel  as  if  I  was  sticking  my  head  in  the 
lion's  mouth  when  I  am  asking  for  money.  Well,  it 
has  never  been  bitten  off  yet,"  he  said. 

In  a  letter  to  a  friend  to  whom  he  .was  used  to 
apply  for  advice  in  these  personal  matters,  he  says : 

"Would   it   be  wise,  do   you   think,  to  write   direct 

to  ,  who  must  be    overloaded    and    deafened    by 

continuous  howls  of  poverty-stricken  institutions  and 
humanity?  But  we  howl,  too;  it  is  our  business.  But 
it  doesn't  do  to  howl  imprudently;  discretion  is  the 
better  part  of  begging.  My  idea  would  be  to  suggest 
a  seventy-dollar  scholarship  given  yearly,  with  no 
promise  whatever  of  continuance,  taking  the  matter  up 
yearly  for  a  fresh  decision.  I  care  for  no  pledges. 
People  who  take  hold  here  usually  don't  let  go.  Volun- 
tary offerings  are  the  best.  Pledges  are  uncomfortable. 
Still  we  need  not  a  big  lift  all  at  once,  but  a  stream 
coming  in  steadily  from  year  to  year.  I  wish  to  get 
people  into  this,  to  swell  the  stream,  making  it  a  river 
of  life  and  light  to  Africa." 

In  these  personal  dealings  great  discretion,  tact 
and  delicacy  were  needed.  To  the  same  friend  he 
wrote : 

"Many  times  it  is  better  to  do  nothing  in  order  to 
succeed.  People  who  give  and  who  advise  are  com- 


In  the  North*    J87CM890  243 

pelled  to  a  severe  consistency  and  system  of  use  both 
of  money  and  of  influence,  which  is  indispensable  to 
the  best  results.  Where  I  have  the  most  influence  I 
use  it  the  least.  The  result,  I  believe,  is  in  the  end 
far  better." 

In  a  report  to  the  trustees,  written  in  1889,  he 
says: 

"I  never  cease  to  wonder  at  the  patience  and  kindness 
of  those  who  daily  listen  to  appeals  from  here  and  some 
other  quarters,  the  wear  and  tear  of  which  can  be 
hardly  less  than  of  those  who  solicit  aid  from  these 
overtaxed  givers.  Having  myself  sometimes  been 
called  on  to  endorse  agents  from  southern  schools, 
I  have  found  it  usually  difficult  to  do  justice  to  these 
earnest  workers  and  at  the  same  time  to  be  fair  to  the 
charitable  who  should  give  in  the  light  of  all  the  facts. 
I  therefore  venture  to  tell  briefly  and  by  way  of 
illustration  our  own  methods. 

"Mr.  Thomas  Cayton,  a  graduate  of  the  Hampton 
school  and  for  six  years  a  teacher,  but  compelled  by  a 
partial  loss  of  sight  to  give  up  this  work,  is  sent  to 
secure  subscriptions  for  the  Southern  Workman  and 
aid  for  and  interest  in  the  school.  He  presents  a  letter 
from  me,  stating  his  mission,  his  salary,  that  he  has  no 
commission,  how  his  expenses  are  paid  and  the  amount 
and  description  of  the  money  he  collected  the  preced- 
ing year.  In  these  cases  I  think  money  should  always 
be  refused  unless  the  gifts  of  the  preceding  year  are 
accounted  for. 

"Nothing  so  encourages  carelessness  and  waste  of 
money  (of  which  there  has  been  a  great  deal),  by  often 
well-meaning  agents,  as  taking  for  granted  that  an  im- 
pressive appeal  is  necessarily  trustworthy. 


244  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"Those  who  do  not  keep  strict  accounts  are  not  fit 
to  be  trusted  with  money,  and  such  accounts  would 
sometimes  show  a  large  per  cent,  used  as  expenses. 
Care  in  giving  means,  in  the  end,  the  ability  to  give  not 
only  more,  but  more  wisely." 

If  his  overtures  were  not  at  once  heeded,  the 
delay  or  failure  only  stimulated  him  to  fresh  effort. 
One  of  his  favorite  mottoes  was  a  saying  of  his  old 
colonel  in  the  Troy  regiment:  "  Cap  tain,  when  you 
want  anything  and  can't  get  it,  raise  the  devil ! " 
General  J.  F.  B.  Marshall  said  of  him: 

"  For  most  people  an  obstacle  is  something  in  the  way 
to  stop  going  on,  but  for  General  Armstrong  it  merely 
meant  something  to  climb  over,  and  if  he  could  not 
climb  all  the  way  over  he  would  get  up  as  high  as 
possible  and  then  crow!" 

As  he  grew  older  he  began  to  crave  the  stimulus 
of  constant  hurry,  work  and  rush,  and  grew  impa- 
tient after  even  a  few  days  of  inactivity. 

"I  have  had  a  taste  of  blood,"  he  said;  "that  is,  I 
have  had  the  taste  of  life  and  work — cannot  live  with- 
out the  arena.  I  must  be  in  it.  .  .  .  Despair  shakes 
his  skinny  hands  and  glares  his  hideous  eyes  on  me  to 
little  purpose.  I  feel  happy  when  all  my  powers  of 
resistance  are  taxed." 

This  restless  life  produced  its  due  effect  physically 
and  he  was  troubled  for  years  with  dyspepsia  and 
sleeplessness.  It  is  an  indication  of  great  physical 


In  the  North*    J870-J890  245 

vigor,  the  priceless  legacy  of  his  long  and  whole- 
some boyhood,  that  in  spite  of  this  physical  weak- 
ness he  was  able  to  keep  the  courage  and  optimism 
of  his  youth  until  middle  life.  He  sincerely  tried  to 
conquer  these  harmful  physical  tendencies,  to  use 
great  caution  in  eating  and  to  take  rest  whenever 
possible,  but  never  succeeded  in  bearing  in  mind 
his  physical  limitations  when  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  welfare  of  Negro  and  Indian  was  at  stake. 
He  wrote  to  his  wife  as  early  as  1870: 

"Your  prayer  that  the  sweet  little  cherub  that  sits 
up  aloft  may  watch  over  me  in  cars,  boats  and  hotels 
is  especially  in  point  in  respect  to  the  latter,  for  do  not 
little  imps  hide  in  fried  potatoes  and  oysters,  while  the 
paw  of  the  fiend  has  consecrated  pie  to  an  unholy  mis- 
sion? Dyspepsia  is  but  the  buffeting  of  Satan,  while 
sirens  that  lure  the  young  man  to  the  shipwreck  of  his 
soul  do  not  in  reality  sing  songs  upon  inviting  shores, 
but  with  white  aprons  on  bring  hot  cakes  wherewith  to 
entice  him  to  his  ruin.  The  Circean  cup  is  for  sale  by 
all  druggists.  .  .  .  Sound,  sensible  cooking  has  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  the  sublimes t  raptures  of  the  soul." 

In  1886  he  suffered  from  a  severe  illness,  the 
effect  of  this  long-continued  strain,  and  at  this 
time  made  strong  resolutions  to  reform: 

"It  all  comes  from  overdoing — from  my  intemperate 
life.  I  have  to  learn  a  hard  lesson:  to  reform,  to  have 
to  live  in  a  wise,  not  wasteful  but  useful,  way  after  a 
life  of  extravagance  is  not  easy.  Am  I  to  be  like  an 
old  patched-up  steam  boiler  that  after  all  is  worn  out 


246  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

and    good    for    nothing  ?     Heaven    forbid !     Help    me 
with  your  prayers  !" 

At  this  time  a  subscription  was  taken  up  among 
his  friends  and  a  considerable  sum  sent  to  him  to 
use  as  a  "health  fund."  His  comments  on  this 
gift  are  characteristic.  To  a  friend,  one  of  the 
principal  givers,  he  writes: 

"Have  just  received — as  a  health  fund — a  trust 
fund  to  turn  into  strength  and  work  for  the  country 
what  is  left  of  my  somewhat  weakened  powers.  I  hope 
to  make  it  a  good  investment.  I  will  try  to  work  it 
out  and  make  my  good  friends  feel  that  they  have  done 
well,  for  you  know  there  are  other  fellows  better  than 
I  putting  in  their  best  licks  for  God  and  humanity 
who  don't  make  half  the  fuss  I  do,  who  to  do  their  work 
have  had  to  keep  near  to  the  paths  of  impecuniosity, 
so  to  speak,  and  need  looking  after;  for  me  to  feast  is 
to  go  terribly  back  on  them,  for  it  would  discourage  the 
good  like  you,  who  are  on  the  lookout  to  see  what  lift 
or  help  they  can  give  in  the  world's  scrimmage.  Pray 
for  me  that  I  be  sensible  and  level-headed  in  this  new 
and  blessed  and  yet  trying  experience." 

Some  time  after  the  receipt  of  this  "trust  fund" 
he  rendered  a  formal  account  of  the  expenditure  of 
it  for  distribution  to  the  unknown  donors  through 
the  chairman  of  the  committee  in  charge  of  the 
matter.  The  sum,  which  amounted  to  a  few 
thousand  dollars,  he  had  divided  into  three  parts. 
The  first  part,  which  amounted  to  about  half  of  the 
entire  sum,  he  spent  in  putting  up  a  small  cottage, 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  247 

conveniently  near,  yet  separated  by  a  stretch  of 
water  from  his  home  at  Hampton.  He  writes  con- 
cerning this  item  of  expenditure: 

"Bluff  Cottage  is  a  pretty,  well-kept  cottage  across 
Hampton  Creek,  beautifully  situated  upon  the  highest 
point  of  the  neighboring  shore.  There  I  spend  a  few 
weeks  in  the  late  spring,  and  the  teachers  get  delightful 
rest  and  change,  going  in  parties  of  six  or  seven  to  spend 
Saturday  and  Sunday  nights  in  the  late  winter  and 
spring.  The  sound  of  plashing  waves  and  the  fine 
water  view  over  there  make  it  a  complete  break  from 
school  routine." 

The  next  statement  concerns  a  small  sum  spent 
in  a  trip  to  the  South  and  the  Bahama  Islands. 
Referring  to  this  he  writes: 

"My  southern  trip  has  been  ever  since  a  great  help 
in  discussing  the  Negro  question.  I  had  long  wished 
to  study  the  blacks  in  the  Gulf  States  and  the  English 
treatment  of  them  at  the  West  Indies.  .  .  .  Five 
weeks  in  Dakota  in  August  and  September,  visiting 
six  reservations  and  studying  Indian  life  and  conditions, 
has  given  me  vantage  ground  of  the  greatest  value  in 
writing  and  speaking  on  the  Indian  question.  I  have 
had  almost  constant  use  for  the  facts  and  impressions 
gained  on  my  southern  and  western  trips." 

The  few  hundred  dollars  that  remained  were  used 
partly  as  a  gift  to  an  associate  and  partly  for  a 
summer  camping  trip: 

"Mr. has  had  much  extra  work  on  account  of 

my  illness  and  needed  the  little  trip.     Camping  out 


248  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

with  my  daughters  at  Asquam  Lake,  New  Hampshire, 
in  July  and  August,  was  most  pleasant  and  in  every 
way  profitable.  .  .  .  Please  excuse  this  egotistic 
statement." 

This  use  of  money  was  characteristic.  All  per- 
sonal funds  were  to  him  trust  funds,  to  be  put, 
if  absolutely  necessary,  into  procuring  a  working 
outfit  of  health,  but  if  possible  to  be  given  directly 
over  to  the  pressing  needs  of  his  work,  whose  varied 
claims  could  never  be  met  by  gifts,  which  were 
usually  for  specified  purposes  alone. 

Such  was  the  pressure  of  his  work,  however,  that 
the  excellent  resolutions  he  formed  when  sick  and 
suffering  modified  but  slightly  his  later  course  in 
life.  It  was  only  at  the  houses  of  friends  in  the 
North  that  he  found  such  approach  to  rest  as  his 
temperament  allowed  him. 

Says  one  by  whose  hearth  he  felt  most  at  home: 

"He  talked  little  of  his  work  unless  asked  directly 
about  it.  He  caught  up  any  topic  that  was  touched 
upon  and  tossed  the  ball  of  conversation  most  nimbly  to 
and  fro.  A  delightful  gaiety  is  my  most  general 
recollection.  There  were  serious  moments  when  he 
rose  to  very  great  heights  of  simplicity  and  insight. 
.  .  .  One  felt  the  whole  striving  of  the  man 
toward  a  goal  he  revered. 

"But  geniality,  wit,  humanity,  all  these  showed  in 
his  speech,  and  when  he  came  in  it  was  always 
as  if  a  wind  of  strength  and  healing  blew.  I 
never  saw  him  discouraged  or  downcast,  even 
when  things  seemed  very  doubtful.  I  remember  his 


In  the  North.    J87CM890  249 

telling  me  once  about  a  college  mate  he  had  just  seen 
who  had  grown  suddenly  very  rich,  and  spreading  his 
hands  he  said,  'These  are  all  there  is  between  my 
little  girls  and  the  world,'  and  then  he  threw  back  his 
head  and  gave  a  most  boyish  laugh.  'And  that's  the 
way  I  like  it ! ' 

"He  was  often  brilliant,  always  delightful,  even  when 
we  knew  he  was  tired  and  suffering.  It  was  his  wonder- 
ful courage  that  never  flagged  that  shines  most  in  my 
memory.  Whatever  topic  he  touched  on,  one  felt  the 
gallant  heart.  .  .  .  He  told  delightful  stories  to 
my  children,  and  no  one  ever  went  away  from  him 
without  strength  and  fresh  hope." 

He  often  sought  relief  under  pressure  of  care  in 
some  outburst  of  nonsense.  When  a  company  was 
gathered  together  to  meet  him  socially,  he  some- 
times offered  to  sing  his  famous  Chinese  song. 
When  all  had  expressed  a  desire  to  hear  it,  he 
would  procure  a  tin  pan  and  fork  for  each  and 
tell  every  one  to  beat  on  the  pan  when  he  gave 
the  word. 

He  would  then  sit  down  in  the  center  of  the  circle, 
and  with  a  perfectly  solemn  face  sing  gibberish 
which  sounded  sufficiently  like  Chinese,  declaring 
it  was  a  classical  love  song  in  that  tongue.  At 
intervals  he  would  call  for  the  pans,  and  all  would 
solemnly  beat  their  pans,  producing  dreadful  dis- 
cords; at  last  some  one  would  burst  out  laughing 
and  a  general  laugh  would  ensue,  which  was  what  he 
made  the  performance  for. 

He  hated  melancholy,  long-faced  gatherings;  if 


250  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

he  could  include  in  his  games  staid,  elderly  per- 
sons who  were  used  to  taking  themselves  seriously, 
or,  as  he  would  say,  "  unused  to  standing  on 
their  heads  as  jolly  ministers  should,"  he  was  more 
than  pleased. 

He  frequently  attended  the  conference  held  at 
Lake  Mohonk  in  behalf  of  the  Indians,  and  enjoyed 
every  moment  of  scrambling  in  the  woods  and 
rowing  on  the  lake.  One  who  knew  him  there  says : 
"He  used  to  say,  'Just  a  minute,  till  I  have 
disposed  of  these  missionaries,  and  then  we  will  go 
out  and  flop."  This  process  consisted  of  lying 
near  some  running  stream  and  watching  the  clouds 
float  by,  interrupting  his  reverie  often  by  some 
funny  incident  or  story. 

At  these  Lake  Mohonk  conferences  he  would 
many  a  time  keep  every  one  sitting  near  him  in 
fits  of  laughter  with  his  running  comments,  and 
then  without  a  moment's  warning  would  be  on 
his  feet,  speaking  with  all  his  usual  ardor  and 
vehemence. 

It  is  as  impossible  to  reproduce  the  sparkle  and 
dash  of  his  talk  as  it  is  to  throw  on  the  canvas  the 
living  man,  but  bits  from  his  private  correspondence 
may  serve  as  suggestions  of  the  quality  of  his 
conversation. 

These  bits  are  usually  found  in  no  direct  connec- 
tion with  what  precedes  or  follows.  They  are,  as 
it  were,  flashed  out  as  a  result  of  some  internal 
process  of  attrition: 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  251 

"  The  chief  comfort  in  life  is  babies.  Institutions 
are  a  grind,  humanity  a  good  deal  of  a  bore;  causes  are 
tiresome,  and  men  of  one  idea  are  a  weariness." 

"What  you  spend  on  yourself  you  lose;  what  you 
give  you  gain." 

"Don't  let  Emerson  with  his  glittering  half-truths 
trouble.  He  is  almost  a  prophet,  and  as  he  says  indeed, 
1  Love  will  change.'  That  is  well,  because  it  only  rests 
with  us  whether  for  the  better  or  worse.  There  is  always 
an  evil  alternative  to  every  bright  possibility.  .  .  . " 

1  *  This  is  a  world  of  cares ;  let  us  rather  say  this — we 
are  immortal ;  our  present  coil  is  on  the  whole  a  very  com- 
fortable one  and  is  truly  wonderfully  made.  We  are 
compelled  to  rub  for  a  few  years  through  a  world  in 
which  things  are  very  much  mixed  up,  and  we  should 
make  the  best  of  it,  and  above  all  be  good  natured." 

"When  it  comes  to  the  scratch,  I  believe  in  the  prayers 
of  the  unorthodox — why  are  they  not  as  effectual  as 
any?  From  the  deep  human  heart  to  the  Infinite 
Heart  there  is  a  line  along  which  will  pass  the  real  cry 
and  the  sympathetic  answer — a  double  flash  from  the 
moral  magnetism  that  fills  the  universe.  Its  conditions 
are  not  found  in  theological  belief,  but  in  the  spirit  of 
a  little  child.  We  can  no  more  understand  our  human 
brother  than  our  Father  in  Heaven  without  bringing 
faith — the  evidence  of  things  unseen — the  subject  of 
things  hoped  for — to  our  aid." 

"I  attended  Dr.  S 's  church  and  liked  the  old 

gentleman's  preaching,  only  he  read  off  what  he  had  to 
say,  and,  in  the  mysterious  way  ministers  usually  have — 
or,  rather,  the  devil  does  it  for  them — he  administered 
a  kind  of  opiate  along  with  his  stirring  appeal  which 
enabled  us  to  go  away  feeling  pretty  comfortable." 

"The  deep  truth  about  all  noble  life  is  that  it  is 
renewed  every  day.  It  commences  from  no  date.  It 


252  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

begins  with  the  day,  with  the  hour ;  it  is  constant  renewal ; 
the  passing  moment  is  a  crisis.  There  is  little  inertia 
in  the  soul.  The  past  has  enough  to  do  to  help  itself, 
and  we  cannot  make  reserves  of  goodness;  the  need  of 
each  day  exhausts  all  the  supply." 

"True  worship  is  a  gentle,  sensitive,  shrinking  emo- 
tion that  steals  softly  into  hearts  in  quiet  moments, 
often  in  response  to  some  beautiful  scene ;  sometimes  it 
comes  to  us  from  the  faithful  true  ones  near  us.  It  seems 
to  shun  the  throng.  There  is  a  religious  impression 
often  in  a  magnificent  church,  but  it  is  not  worship." 

"All  progress  of  strong  hearts  is  by  action  and 
reaction.  Human  life  is  too  weak  to  be  an  incessant 
eagle  flight  toward  the  Sun  of  Righteousness.  Wings 
will  be  sometimes  folded  because  they  are  wings.  The 
pinions  that  endure  in  eternal  flight  are  fitted  to  us  by 
Heaven's  messengers  that  meet  the  ascending  spirit. 
The  earthly  struggle  must  be  enduring — that  is  all. 
There  must  be  no  surrender;  we  can't  expect  much  of 
victory  here." 

"I  dislike  public  prayer  very  much,  because  one  is 
so  self-conscious;  it  is  a  hard  thing  to  rise  up  before 
people  and  pray  to  God  and  not  to  them.  I  have  been 
greatly  troubled  in  this  way,  and  only  take  part  in  that 
public  exercise  when  it  is  plainly  in  the  line  of  duty  and 
good  sense.  I  don't  mind  the  students  here;  I  enjoy  it 
with  them  alone,  but  there  are  always  some  of  the  house- 
hold present  and  that  I  hardly  fancy.  But  this  is  all 
a  confession  of  weakness." 

"The  kingdom  of  heaven  will,  I  think,  come  through 
Christian  sociology.  Missionary  work  is  founded  on 
it,  but  doesn't  half  recognize  the  fact." 

"Experience  has  been  called  'an  arch  through  which 
gleams  the  untraveled  world ' ;  it  has  been  called  '  stern 
lights*;  but  I  prefer  to  call  it  a  slow  fire  over  which 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  253 

mortals  are  gradually  turned  on  the  toasting-fork  of 
destiny." 

"'There's  no  such  word  as  fail.'  It  is  very  true. 
Equally  true  that  there  is  failure  in  all  success,  and  the 
converse  is  true." 

"Politics  and  philanthropy  are  a  grind;  only  when 
one  is  really  at  the  post  of  duty  and  knows  it  there  is 
a  sensation  of  being  lifted  and  lifting  (et  teneo  et  teneor) 
which  sometimes  comes  gradually  over  one.  Detail  is 
grinding,  the  whole  inspiring.  God's  kings  and  priests 
must  drudge  in  seedy  clothes  before  they  can  wear  the 
purple." 

"Barbarism  is  horrible  in  its  reality,  but  picturesque 
and  beautiful  in  its  ruin.  In  killing  it  there  is  danger 
that  we  kill  the  man  that  has  it  and  his  interesting 
accessories." 

"Royalty  is  kept  from  reality  and  in  respect  to 
genuine  opportunities  is  singularly  destitute.  The 
beggar  is  nearer  to  truth  than  the  king." 

"God  gave  men  moral  energies  for  moral  ends  as 
other  energies  for  other  ends.  You  will  gather  where 
you  sow — you  will  raise  sugar  where  you  work  for  it. 
You  will  raise  up  intelligence,  morality  and  religion  as 
you  shall  work  for  that." 

"The  adversary  of  souls  hasn't  half  a  chance  at  one 
on  a  bright  winter's  day.  Conscience  shoulders  arms 
and  stands  at '  attention. '  Hence  New  England  virtue ; 
hence  tropical  looseness." 

"To  get  at  truth,  divide  a  hyperbole  by  any  number 
greater  than  two.  ...  In  animated  narrative 
divide  facts  by  ten." 

Naturally  interested  in  educational  topics,  Arm- 
strong had  some  radical  theories  in  regard  to  educa- 
tion as  applied  to  his  own  and  other  people's  children. 


254  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

He  regarded  education  in  its  broadest  sense,  and 
always  laid  more  stress  on  the  influence  of  the 
teacher  and  of  the  surroundings  than  on  any  method 
or  course  of  study. 

"Education  by  atmosphere  is  the  most  real;  its 
results  are  eternal,  for  it  makes  character,"  and  he 
regarded  character  as  the  goal  in  all  education. 
"Development  is  more  and  more  my  idea  of  educa- 
tion." He  thought  it  right  that  each  person  should 
follow  his  own  bent,  and  felt  that  "it  is  mean  for 
parents  to  interfere  with  their  children's  growth 
and  progress"  by  claiming  their  society  when  their 
development  seemed  to  be  better  forwarded  else- 
where than  at  home. 

As  the  Indian  work  at  Hampton  was  sustained 
financially  by  yearly  Congressional  grants,  trips 
to  Washington  to  secure  and  insure  these  appropri- 
ations and  visits  to  the  Lake  Mohonk  Indian  Confer- 
ence to  keep  himself  informed  concerning  Indian 
affairs  thus  became  a  part  of  General  Armstrong's 
yearly  routine  and  brought  him  into  greater 
intimacy  with  national  affairs. 

Thus  he  came  more  and  more  into  the  public  eye. 
As  the  leading  exponent  of  Negro  education,  as  a 
champion  of  the  Indian,  and  as  a  successful  industrial 
educator,  he  was  often  invited  to  address  clubs  and 
societies  in  eastern  cities,  attend  public  dinners, 
or  write  articles  for  the  press,  so  that  during  his 
later  years  he  had  not  only  the  carrying  on  of 
Hampton  and  the  effort  of  raising  money  to  meet 


SAMUEL  CHAPMAN  ARMSTRONG 


In  the  North.    J870-J890  255 

its  needs,  but  the  varied  demands  of  many  public 
interests  to  complicate  his  life. 

In  the  year  1887  the  degree  of  LL.D.  was  conferred 
upon  him  by  his  alma  mater,  Williams  College,  and 
in  1889  by  Harvard  University.  He  felt  these 
honors  deeply,  yet  received  them  in  all  humility 
as  tokens  of  the  nation's  kindness  to  those  who  were 
doing  its  work.  His  response  to  a  speech  of  intro- 
duction at  Harvard  shows  this  impersonal  habit  of 
mind.  It  was  his  work,  not  himself,  that  was  ever 
uppermost.  He  said: 

"Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Alumni: 
This  is  my  first  presence  at  a  Harvard  commence- 
ment, and  I  can  never  forget  the  pleasure  and  the  honor 
of  it.  It  is  great.  Those  of  us  who  receive  these  honors 
have  more  pleasure  in  them  for  the  sake  of  our  mothers 
and  our  friends  than  for  ourselves,  and  I  thank  you 
for  them  as  well  as  myself.  This  scene  is  grand  and 
inspiring.  You  have  nobly  honored  your  soldier  boys 
in  this  hall.  I  think  the  next  time  the  country  calls 
for  them  there  will  be  one  hundred  per  cent,  of  Harvard 
students  ready  to  go.  Dealing  with  the  so-called 
despised  races,  I  have  found  that  there  is  an  inspira- 
tion in  self-help ;  that  from  the  incessant  daily  strain  of 
brain  and  body  in  a  combined  system  of  labor  and 
schooling,  such  as  would  be  impossible  as  a  basis  of 
any  northern  educational  work,  there  comes  to  these 
people  a  manliness  and  moral  force  and  vigor  of  thought 
and  action  which  command  the  respect  of  all.  The 
simply  trained  Negro  boy  or  Indian  boy  of  Hampton 
may  be  worth  as  much  as  an  accomplished  Harvard 
graduate,  and  he  is  as  ready  to  die  for  his  country  and, 
what  is  more  difficult,  to  live  for  it." 


256  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

To  General  Armstrong's  campaigns  through  the 
North  is  due  a  large  part  of  the  present  interest  and 
confidence  in  the  possibilities  of  the  Negro  under 
wise  leadership.  On  these  topics  the  public  is  now 
informed  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  formerly,  and 
the  opinion  that  industrial  training  is  the  training 
best  adapted  to  these  weaker  races  has  become 
general.  Both  his  aims  at  the  Hampton  school  and 
his  method  of  raising  money  at  the  North  have  been 
many  times  duplicated,  until  few  persons  in  the 
North  can  question  the  fact  that  it  pays,  and  that 
it  is  a  national  duty  to  educate  the  Negro  and 
the  Indian  into  worthy  citizenship^ 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SOUTH 

GENERAL  ARMSTRONG'S  lifelong  habit  of  pre- 
serving a  non-partizan  attitude,  of  looking  at  both 
sides  of  a  question,  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  his 
relations  to  his  southern  neighbors  and  to  the 
complex  problems  of  southern  life.  It  enabled 
him  to  regard  them  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
philosopher  and  not  of  a  political  opponent.  The 
following  extracts  are  taken  from  letters  written  to 
a  society  in  Honolulu  of  which  he  was  a  life  mem- 
ber. He  often  spoke  of  the  similarity  of  the  prob- 
lems of  southern  American  and  of  Hawaiian  life, 
each  encompassed  by  a  large  population  of  dark- 
skinned  people.  In  1889  he  wrote: 

"You  get  from  the  papers  very  little  insight  into  the 
South.  They  write  for  their  market.  The  South  is 
more  and  more  tolerant  of  free  speech;  tremendous 
but  quiet  changes  are  going  on,  even  in  the  heart  of 
Mississippi,  where  the  splendid  chances  for  stock  rais- 
ing are  attracting  Northerners.  Cotton-growing  there 
is  leaving  the  uplands  for  the  Yazoo  bottom  and  like 
regions,  whither  the  Negroes  are  flocking  by  thousands 
and  getting  small  farms,  while  Bermuda  and  orchard 
and  other  grasses  are  found  to  flourish  on  the  exhausted 
old  cotton  fields.  Grass  makes  beef,  beef  makes  men; 

257 


258  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

cotton  is  dethroned,  grass  is  king;  the  crop  is  worth 
three  times  as  much  as  the  cotton  crop.  When  the 
South  raises  its  own  meat — pork  especially — and 
ceases  to  buy  it  in  the  northwest,  reconstruction  will 
be  complete,  for  then  the  South  can  pay  any  price  for 
education." 

"The  Negroes  of  the  South  are  capable  of  and  do 
many  provoking  things;  but  generally  the  fiery  south- 
ern spirit  acts  so  excessively  that  sympathy  with  the 
provocation  is  lost  in  condemnation  of  its  extreme 
measures." 

"The  war  was  the  saving  of  the  South.  Defeat  and 
ruin  brought  more  material  prosperity  to  the  South 
than  to  the  North,  and  the  future  has  untold  advan- 
tages in  store.  This  is  the  true  reconstruction.  Edu- 
cation is  part  of  it,  but  capital  and  enterprise,  which 
make  men  work,  are  the  greater  part.  The  Negro  and 
poor  white  and,  more  than  all,  the  old  aristocrat  are 
being  saved  by  hard  work,  which,  next  to  the  grace  of 
God,  saves  our  souls.  .  .  .  Good  sense  and  a  love 
of  fair  play  are,  I  believe,  the  ruling  instincts  at  the 
South,  but  Southerners  so  dreadfully  overdo  the  thing 
in  dealing  with  the  Negro  !  Where  a  mere  show  of 
force  would  answer  they  shoot  half  a  dozen  blacks,  the 
whites  usually  not  getting  hurt.  .  .  .  The  angry 
race  feeling  that  crops  out  here  and  there  between  the 
races  at  the  South  is  not  the  rule.  But  nearly  8,000,000 
blacks  among  12,000,000  unsympathetic  whites  will 
have  some  trouble  and  to  some  extent  must  and  will 
be  'sat  on'  politically.  Monkeying  with  power, 
whether  in  Hawaii  or  in  the  Sunny  South,  will  end  by 
the  monkey  losing  a  part  or  the  whole  of  his  tail." 

In  an  address  delivered  at  Williams  College 
February,  1890,  were  these  words: 


The  Negro  and  the  South  259 

"There  is  a  great  deal  of  misunderstanding  on  the 
part  of  the  North  regarding  the  South.  The  word 
South  means  a  very  large  territory.  You  speak  of  the 
South  as  a  whole  as  all  bad ;  but  in  eight  of  the  southern 
States  it  is  admitted  that  there  is  no  trouble,  but  they 
are  held  responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  others.  In  the 
other  southern  States  there  are  occasional  outrages, 
which  are  due  largely  to  the  peculiar  temperament  of 
the  people;  this  the  people  of  the  North  cannot  under- 
stand. They  cannot  understand  the  peculiar  relations 
of  the  Negroes  to  the  whites.  What  would  you  do  if 
you  had  this  great  preponderance  of  Negroes  among 
you  ?  You  don't  know.  No  one  can  know  until  it 
has  been  tried.  The  Negro  is  a  great  political  and 
social  element  which  has  to  be  met  by  the  South.  It 
is  not  his  political  standing  that  makes  the  trouble, 
but  his  social  standing." 

In  the  years  that  elapsed  between  1870  and  1890 
a  change  came  over  many  of  his  opinions  concerning 
reconstruction.  It  will  be  remembered  that  while 
in  the  employ  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  he  heartily 
endorsed  that  policy  in  general,  as  became  a  loyal 
employee ;  later  he  saw  that  reconstruction  measures 
had  failed  in  certain  radical  ways,  and  characterized 
them  as  "a  bridge  of  wood  over  a  river  of  fire." 

Yet  to  the  basal  fact  of  the  reconstruction  scheme 
he  always  gave  unquestioning  adherence.  The 
granting  of  the  suffrage  to  the  Negroes  was  the 
starting-point  of  his  work;  since  the  Negro  was  a 
voter,  he  must  be  a  worthy  voter ;  to  make  the 
enfranchised  colored  man  an  honorable  citizen  was 
the  best  work  for  his  country  that  General  Armstrong 


260  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

knew  how  to  do.  Without  this  corner-stone,  the 
structures  of  education,  thrift  and  morality  which 
he  was  striving  to  rear  rested  on  no  assured  basis; 
but  for  the  privilege  of  the  suffrage  the  Negro 
would  be  at  the  mercy  of  every  unprincipled  neigh- 
bor. His  own  words — not  the  words  of  a  party 
man,  for  though  voting  with  the  Republican  party 
in  general  he  was  far  from  confining  his  sympathies 
to  the  measures  of  that  party — show  his  reasons  for 
this  attitude.  In  a  reply  to  an  article  by  Senator 
Wade  Hampton,  which  argued  that  if  a  suffrage 
with  educational  qualifications  had  been  granted 
when  the  question  was  first  brought  up  it  would 
have  acted  as  an  incentive  to  the  Negroes  to 
qualify  themselves  to  vote,  he  wrote  in  1888: 

"How  could  they  have  qualified  themselves,  or  who 
would  have  qualified  them?  Would  their  former 
masters  have  hastened  to  put  an  independent  vote  into 
their  hands?  What  but  the  pressure  of  the  very  exi- 
gency of  general  suffrage  has  created  the  general  senti- 
ment for  education  and  built  up  the  common-school 
system  in  the  South  that  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  the 
last  twenty  years?" 

In  a  public  address  delivered  in  1887,  in  words 
that  perhaps  express  his  opinions  as  clearly  as  any, 
he  said: 

"After  all,  being  a  citizen  and  a  voter  has  more  than 
anything  else  made  the  Negro  a  man.  The  recognition 
of  his  manhood  has  done  much  to  create  it.  Political 
power  is  a  two-edged  sword  which  may  cut  both  ways 


The  Negro  and  the  South  261 

and  do  as  much  harm  as  good.  In  the  main,  it  has,  I 
believe,  been  the  chief  developing  force  in  the  progress 
of  the  race.  It  is,  however,  probable  that  this  would 
not  have  been  so  had  it  not  been  for  the  support  of  a 
surrounding  white  civilization  which,  though  not  always 
kind,  has  prevented  the  evils  which  would  have  resulted 
from  an  unrestricted  black  vote." 

"The  political  experience  of  the  Negro  has  been  a 
great  education  to  him.  In  spite  of  his  many  blunders 
and  unintentional  crimes  against  civilization,  he  is 
to-day  more  of  a  man  than  he  would  have  been  had  he 
not  been  a  voter.  .  .  .  Manhood  is  best  brought 
out  by  recognition  of  it.  Citizenship,  together  with 
the  common  school,  is  the  great  developing  force  in 
this  country.  It  compels  attention  to  the  danger 
which  it  creates.  There  is  nothing  like  faith  in  man 
to  bring  out  the  manly  qualities." 

"Suffrage  furnished  him  [the  Negro]  with  a  stimulus 
which  was  terribly  misused,  but  it  has  reacted  and 
given  him  a  training  which  it  was  out  of  the  power 
of  churches  and  schools  to  impart.  The  source  of 
American  intelligence  is  not  so  much  the  pedagogue  as 
the  system  which  gives  each  man  a  share  in  the  conduct 
of  affairs,  leading  him  to  think,  discuss  and  act,  and 
thus  educating  him  quite  as  much  by  his  failures  as  by 
his  successes.  Responsibility  is  the  best  educator." 

From  an  editorial  written  in  1878: 

"Hereafter  it  will  be  seen  that  Negro  suffrage  was  a 
boon  to  the  race,  not  so  much  for  a  defense,  but  as  a 
tremendous  fact  that  compelled  its  education.  There 
is  nothing  to  do  but  attempt  its  elevation  in  every 
possible  way.  In  their  pinching  poverty  the  southern 
States  have  seized  the  question  of  Negro  education 


262  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong; 

with  a  vigor  that  is  the  outcome  of  danger.  The  ex- 
slave  would  have  sunk  into  practical  serfdom  not  by 
oppression,  but  by  stagnation  of  his  mind.  We  have 
no  reason  to  think  that  the  South  would  have  fitted 
him  to  vote,  but  now  it  must  be  done,  and  it  will  be 
done  with  an  energy  that  is  born  of  emergency.  To 
universal  suffrage  in  the  South,  more  than  to  anything 
else,  is  due  the  existence  of  the  strong  and  growing 
class  of  ex-slave-holders,  who  advocate  free  schools  for 
all.  Reason  may  appear  to  be  in  favor  of  limited 
suffrage;  experience  seems  on  the  other  side.'* 

"The  talk  of  disfranchisement  is  idle;  it  comes  too 
late;  the  Negro  is  not  what  he  was  twenty-five  years 
ago,  and  the  next  half-century  will  see  great  changes." 

His  yearly  written  observations  of  the  progress 
and  condition  of  the  Negro  race  form  a  series  of 
papers  interesting  both  to  the  student  of  southern 
affairs  and  to  one  who  is  concerned  with  Samuel 
Armstrong's  development,  for  here  speaks  the 
mature  mind  through  the  practised  pen;  here  he 
indicates  a  method  which  he  found  to  be  adapted 
to  the  treatment  of  such  vexed  questions  as  the 
position  of  the  Negro  in  the  South,  a  method  broad, 
impartial  and  reasonable.  These  extracts  touch 
briefly  on  the  social,  moral,  political,  financial  and 
educational  situation  among  the  Negroes.  In  a 
report  to  the  trustees,  written  in  1886,  he  says: 

"Party  ties  are  loosening;  personal  interest  and 
influence  are  more  and  more  decisive  in  political  action. 
Reasonably  well  assured  that  he  is  secure  in  the  rights 
he  has  so  far  attained,  the  colored  man  has,  in  most  of 


The  Negro  and  the  South  263 

the  southern  States,  no  longer  serious  anxiety  on  elec- 
tion days.  I  think  that,  on  the  whole,  the  Negroes 
are  less  devoted  than  formerly  to  politics,  which  are 
becoming  the  specialty  of  a  few,  and  that  our  black  pop- 
ulation is  forming  itself  into  strata.  The  highest — that 
is,  the  best  third  or  fourth — are  progressing,  gaining 
rapidly  in  education,  property  and  character,  while 
the  lowest  third  or  fourth  are  stationary  in  miserable 
conditions,  or,  worse  still,  are  slowly  sinking  into  lower 
depths.  There  is  a  large,  well-behaved  middle  class 
who  take  life  easily  and  work  when  they  must;  they 
are  laborers  and  producers,  and  add  much  to  the  wealth 
of  the  country,  but  lack  ambition,  are  careless  of  the 
future,  and  must  be  moved  by  forces  from  without 
rather  than  from  within.  The  hope  for  them  lies  in  the 
good  management  of  landholders  and  employers  of 
every  kind  and  in  the  lifting  influences  of  a  practical 
Christian  education. 

"The  earnest,  capable  schoolteacher  can,  both 
directly  and  through  his  pupils,  instruct  them  in 
and  inspire  them  to  better  things.  The  graduates 
of  Hampton  and  other  institutions  during  the  last 
sixteen  years  have  proved  this.  The  black  race  is 
strikingly  responsive  to  the  influences  about  it.  Its 
condition  in  the  South  corresponds  to  that  of  the 
surrounding  whites;  it  shares  in  their  prosperity  or 
adversity,  and  has  kept  pace  pretty  well  with  the 
stronger  race  in  the  growth  of  'the  New  South.' 

"The  Negroes  just  now  need  light  more  than  rights. 
In  their  darkness  they  are,  especially  in  the  South, 
suffering  untold  evils  from  the  credit  or  contract  system, 
through  which,  partly  by  their  own  fault  and  partly 
from  the  advantage  taken  of  them,  tens  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  them  are  kept  in  fixed  and  hopeless 
poverty,  harder  to  bear  than  their  former  bondage. 


264  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

Dismayed,  they  blindly  seek  some  change,  and  their 
restless  movements  from  point  to  point  result  now 
and  then  in  an  'exodus,'  where  there  is  always  the 
possibility  of  some  new  development.  Imposed  upon 
by  others,  helpless  under  their  own  appetites  and  pas- 
sions, they  appeal  to  our  sympathies  more  than  do 
those  who  are  literally  blind,  for  we  must  never  forget 
that  they  are  in  no  sense  responsible  for  their  own 
ignorance. 

"The  recent  temperance  agitation  under  'local 
option'  laws  passed  by  various  southern  States,  Georgia 
leading,  is  a  most  hopeful  sign.  Experience  has  proven 
the  success  of  prohibition  in  country  regions,  and  the 
southern  population  is  largely  in  the  country.  While 
not  hard  drinkers,  the  blacks  very  generally  drink,  and 
keep  themselves  poor  by  the  yearly  consumption  of 
the  value  of  thousands  of  farms  and  homes.  To-day 
they  need  emancipation  from  whisky  as  much  as 
twenty  years  ago  they  needed  it  from  their  task-masters, 
but  I  count  upon  prohibition  only  as  one  weapon  among 
many  which  should  be  used  in  fighting  this  battle.  It 
is  not  political  pressure,  but  moral  inspiration,  which 
will  gain  the  day,  and  it  is  only  as  the  former  is 
used  as  a  means  to  an  end  that  I  can  give  it  my 
hearty  support." 

And  in  1889: 

"As  might  be  expected,  the  popular  talk  about  the 
Negro  is  all  in  a  hopeless  key;  but  to  the  direct  ques- 
tions, 'Are  the  laborer's  pigs  and  poultry  and  crops  safer 
than  ten  years  ago?  Are  the  loafer  and  thief  more 
likely  to  get  their  due?  Are  the  Negroes  inclined  to 
get  homesteads  ? '  the  answer  is  usually  '  Yes. ' 

"There     are     unquestionably    multitudes    of    'low- 


The  Negro  and  the  South  265 

down'  Negroes  and  many  wretched  neighborhoods, 
but  I  think  that  intelligent  white  men  everywhere  in 
the  South  admit  that  the  line  between  the  good  and 
the  bad  is  every  year  more  distinctly  drawn — a  sure 
proof  of  progress.  The  gain  was  never  so  rapid  as  now, 
thanks  to  Negro  pluck  and  purpose  and  to  the  stern 
discipline  of  their  past,  which  developed  qualities 
beyond  the  power  of  schools  alone  to  create;  and  this 
basis  of  hope  is,  I  believe,  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
political  pressure.  Increasing  enterprise  at  the  South 
and  the  new  industrial  life  of  the  people  are  helpful 
conditions,  and  where  they  are  supplemented  by  educa- 
tion are  pushing  the  better  part  of  the  Negro  race  into 
prosperity,  giving  them  a  place  and  making  them  a 
power. 

"As  prosperity  creates  social  distinctions,  political 
divisions  will  follow,  and  the  human  nature  of  both 
races  may  be  trusted  to  adjust  the  relations  which  are 
indeed  to-day  generally  amicable.  In  those  localities 
where  lawlessness  and  injustice  have  repelled  capital 
and  immigration,  the  penalty  of  impoverishment  is 
the  swift  result  and  Government  can  do  little;  the 
people  must  finish  the  work  of  reconstruction. 

"I  believe  there  is  no  such  illustration  on  record  of 
the  law  of  compensation  as  is  to  be  found  in  the  history 
of  the  Negro  race.  More  has  been  given  them  than 
has  been  taken  away.  Hard  knocks  have  driven  them 
forward.  'Development  under  difficulties  '  seems  to 
be  their  law  of  progress,  and  this  is  their  heroic  age. 
Indulgence  has  demoralized  the  Indian,  while  harsh- 
ness has  strengthened  the  Negro;  our  black  boys  could 
not  afford  to  have  their  path  made  too  easy.  As  I  look 
at  the  life  of  the  average  white  college  student,  I  know 
that  our  young  men  could  not  stand  the  ordeal  of  so 
much  prosperity,  any  more  than  the  former  could  endure 


266  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

the  strain  which  develops  our  Hampton  boys.  The 
Negro's  'speed,'  so  to  speak,  is  more  rapid  than  that 
of  the  white  student,  becaues  he  still  feels  the  momen- 
tum always  associated  with  the  first  period  of  growth; 
but  this,  rightly  measured,  is  in  no  sense  deceptive. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  against  the  Negro  can  be  arrayed 
a  formidable  phalanx  of  discouraging  facts,  but  the 
weight  of  evidence  is  finally  in  his  favor,  and  we  have 
a  right  to  our  enthusiasm.  Without  it,  indeed,  we 
should  poorly  serve  the  cause  for  which  we  stand,  for 
nothing  so  cripples  a  worker  as  a  burden  of  grievances, 
and  our  strength  is  in  our  belief  that  the  providential 
guidance  of  the  Negro  is  as  manifest  to-day  as  it 
ever  was." 

General  Armstrong  gained  his  impressions  of  the 
South  and  the  Negroes  both  from  conversation  and 
contact  with  many  hundred  young  colored  people 
at  the  Hampton  school  and  from  trips  taken 
through  the  South  for  the  purpose  of  informing  him- 
self concerning  the  real  condition  of  their  people. 
While  on  these  tours  he  traveled  incognito,  as  it 
were ;  for  no  one  would  suspect  the  northern  philan- 
thropist in  the  soldierly,  keen-eyed  man,  dressed 
in  a  rather  baggy  gray  suit  and  black  slouched  hat. 
Indeed,  his  type  of  face  resembled  rather  that  of  the 
Englishman  of  action,  so  that  unsuspected  he  was 
able  to  converse  freely  with  men  of  all  sorts  every- 
where, interrogating  with  equal  interest  the  station 
loafer — while  the  train  made  the  leisurely  halts 
peculiar  to  southern  railways — or  the  more  culti- 
vated travelers  within  the  coaches. 


The  Negro  and  the  South  267 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  written  to  his 
school  paper  describe  impressions  of  South  Carolina 
in  1887;  they  show  in  some  detail  his  method  of 
obtaining  information  about  the  South,  and  present 
pictures  of  contrasting  sides  of  southern  life,  now 
overhung  by  a  threatening  cloud  of  political  con- 
fusion, now  lightened  by  increasing  thrift  and 
prosperity : 

"COLUMBIA,  South  Carolina,  January,  1887. 

"Through  the  kindness  of  ex-Governor  Thompson, 
of  this  State,  I  had  the  most  pleasant  access  to  his 
genial  successor,  Governor  Richardson,  whose  appre- 
ciation of  the  importance  of  the  Negro  question  is  deep ; 
only  thinking,  responsible  men  in  situations  like  his 
can  so  realize  it,  and  he  gave  much  time  to  its  discus- 
sion. .  .  . 

"In  the  entire  State  there  is  a  black  majority  of 
about  50,000.  It  is  a  postulate  of  politics  that  this 
majority  shall  not  rule  the  State.  Its  record  of  corrupt, 
extravagant,  high-handed  control  for  eight  years  was 
far  worse  for  the  State  than  the  period  of  the  war,  which 
destroyed  the  people's  prosperity  but  did  not  hurt 
their  manhood.  The  general  demoralization  during 
the  rule  of  the  blacks  was  unspeakably  bad ;  civilization 
could  hardly  stand  up  before  it.  The  Negroes  were 
not  to  blame  when  the  expenses  of  one  session  of  the 
Legislature  amounted  to  $1,100,000 — the  worst  year 
of  all  (the  Legislature  now  just  closed,  after  a  thirty- 
day  session,  cost  but  $53,000);  they  were  led  into  mis- 
chief by  unscrupulous  white  men. 

"A  better  feeling  between  the  races  is  setting  in. 
The  Governor's  plantations  are  in  the  black  country, 
where  there  is  security  for  all.  Negroes  are  tried  by 


268  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

jurors  of  their  own  race,  but  frequently  prefer  white 
ones.  A  black  man's  poverty  never  prevents  his  having 
able  counsel  in  criminal  cases.  Some  years  ago  dread 
of  the  incendiary  was  a  widespread  terror.  Now  the 
whites  feel  secure  in  the  densest  black  surroundings. 
Nearly  every  Negro  is  a  church  member  and  has  no 
opinion  at  all  of  the  white  man's  religion,  but  morally 
he  is  very  weak  and  needs  more  than  anything  else 
improvement  at  this  point.  This  is  the  problem  of  his 
education.  How  shall  it  be  accomplished  ? 

"My  knowledge  of  things  having  been  gained  so  far 
from  Democratic  sources,  I  found  (in  Charleston)  a 
Negro  Republican  who  is  held  in  high  estimation  in  the 
community  and  seemed  a  clear-headed,  reliable  man. 
He  said  that  there  are  colored  policemen  in  the  com- 
munity as  high  as  the  grade  of  lieutenant;  that  one- 
third  of  the  paid  fire  department  of  the  city  is  colored ; 
that  colored  people  on  steamboats  and  railroads  in 
this  State  have  first-class  seats  when  they  pay  the 
price.  I  noticed  myself  that  a  tidy,  respectable  class 
of  colored  people  ride  in  the  'ladies'  car,'  and  that  only 
rough-looking  ones  were  in  the  smoking  car.  The 
truth  is  that  the  entire  Republican  legislation  on  the 
civil  rights  of  the  blacks  remains  unaltered;  much  of  it, 
however,  is  a  dead  letter.  My  informant  said  that 
the  Negro  vote  is  practically  abolished,  and  at  the  last 
election  only  half  the  whites  voted.  .  .  .  He  him- 
self used  to  believe  in  universal  suffrage,  but  did  so  no 
longer,  from  his  experience  of  the  ruinous  taxation 
under  Republican  rule  which  made  some  colored  men 
of  property  favor  the  election  of  Governor  Hampton, 
of  which  he  was  glad.  His  taxes  have  been  reduced 
from  $77  to  $22  a  year.  ...  He  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  condition  of  the  black  voter,  but  '  what  could 


The  Negro  and  the  South  269 

be  done  ? '  He  thought  the  whites  could,  if  they  tried, 
divide  the  Negro  vote. 

"  I  think  the  Negroes  of  South  Carolina  will  not  suffer 
much  from  not  voting — perhaps  on  the  whole  they  are 
improving — and  that  they  are  unspeakably  better  off 
than  when  in  power,  but  that,  however,  the  principles 
of  popular  government  in  the  State  are  in  peril,  and 
that  real  democracy  may  be  going  to  destruction. 
An  undue  Congressional  and  electoral  power  is  gained. 
Tampering  with  men's  right  to  vote  is  most  dangerous. 
Many  who  see  nothing  else  to  do  speak  of  it  with  the 
deepest  concern.  I  had  no  idea  that  this  sentiment 
existed.  All  seems  quite  well  now,  but  thinking  men 
are  thinking.  They  see  that  there  is  a  black  cloud  over 
the  future,  and  nowhere  else  is  this  better  appreciated. 
.  .  .  There  appears  to  be  a  general  feeling  that 
an  unimpeded  Negro  majority  could  repeat  the  terrible 
work  of  former  years.  .  .  .  Men  talk  earnestly 
but  not  bitterly  about  it,  with  most  kind  and  friendly 
feeling  toward  the  blacks.  The  true  thing  for  us  to 
do  [is  to  put  ourselves  in  their  places.  What  would 
we  do  if  there?  Only  a  Pharisee  could  be  boastful. 
The  only  hope  *for  the  future  is  a  vigorous  effort  to 
elevate  the  colored  race.  The  only  way  out  of  it  all 
is  by  admitting  every  thoughtful  man  to  education — 
practical  education  that  shall  fit  them  for  life.  To  let 
things  go  on  indefinitely  as  they  are  will,  I  believe,  in 
the  end  prove  as  disastrous  to  local  civilization  as  was 
the  reign  of  ignorance;  for  by  a  longer,  slower  way 
it  will  at  last  lead  to  anarchy. 

"Beaufort,  South  Carolina,  is  the  region  where  the 
finest  cotton  in  the  world  is  grown ;  is  the  center  of  Negro 
politics  in  this  State  and  one  of  the  strongholds  of  the 
black  man  in  the  South.  This  place,  Port  Royal 
Island,  and  the  other  sea  islands  along  the  coast,  are 


270  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

owned  chiefly  by  Negroes,  who  outnumber  the  whites 
about  ten  to  one,  and  who,  through  aid  of  the  tax  sales 
of  the  war  period,  were  enabled  to  buy  small  farms  of 
from  ten  to  twenty  acres  at  a  very  low  rate.  They  are 
steadily  buying  more.  The  great  majority  live  in  their 
own  homes.  There  is,  I  think,  no  Negro  population  in 
this  country  just  so  situated.  There  are  many  similarly 
located  on  the  mainland  close  by,  making  a  domain 
of  blacks  which  in  an  interesting  way  illustrates  a  phase 
of  the  problem  of  this  race.  .  .  . 

"Showing  me  a  very  strong  statement  from  a  reporter 
of  a  northern  paper  about  the  stealing  done  by  colored 
employees,  a  member  of  the  firm  of  J.  J.  Dale  &  Com- 
pany, who  do  the  largest  business  in  the  sea  islands 
in  ginning  cotton,  said  that  fifteen  years'  experience  in 
buying  cotton  from  the  Negroes  had  taught  the  firm 
that  not  over  five  per  cent,  of  them  would  cheat  by 
adding  water,  salt  or  sand  or  overweighing  the  cotton 
in  any  way,  and  but  one  in  twenty  cheats  in  business 
dealings.  With  100  women  employees  in  the  gin-house, 
and  constant  opportunity  to  steal  cotton,  there  is  not 
two  per  cent,  loss  of  stock.  Dale  &  Company  have 
eight  large  stores  on  these  islands,  have  no  one  especially 
to  watch  their  goods,  and  have  had  little  loss. 

1 '  Tax  and  crown  land  can  be  bought  to  an  unlimited 
extent  for  $1.25  per  acre  on  which  the  Negroes  can  dig 
out  a  living.  ...  I  saw  six  considerable  stores  in  three 
blocks  of  the  principal  street  kept  by  Negroes.  They 
have  worked  into  the  business  life  of  the  place  and  fill 
quite  a  number  of  important  offices  of  trust  and  honor 
— and  nobody  is  hurt.  The  whites  as  a  class  are  far 
ahead,  but  the  Negro  movement — or  tendency — is  a 
healthy  and  encouraging  one.  There  was  more  neat- 
ness than  I  had  expected  to  find  in  the  many  little  homes 
I  looked  into;  the  floors  were  universally  clean;  the 


The  Negto  and  the  South  271 

buildings  were  often  mere  shells.  Many  have  complained 
of  these  people's  labor.  I  had  a  two  hours'  drive  with 
Mr.  Johnson,  a  white  man,  a  pineapple  planter,  etc., 
who  has  had  great  experience  through  a  long  life  with 
this  labor  and  was  well  satisfied  with  it.  He  knew 
what  was  reasonable  to  expect,  what  allowance  to  make, 
and  did  a  very  large  and  successful  business.  As  every- 
where else,  the  unsuccessful  man  must  have  his  scape- 
goat, and  it  is  very  convenient  to  blame  the  black  man. 

"There  is  a  large  Negro  population  in  this  State  with 
little  or  no  political  organization.  There  is  no  agitation 
and  little  voting  on  their  part ;  there  is  peace ;  the  lamb 
lies  down  beside  the  lion.  A  leading  educator  of  the 
Negro  race  told  me  in  the  presence  of  a  prominent 
Democrat  that  the  three  blackest  parishes  or  counties 
of  Louisiana,  wholly  officered  and  controlled  by  Negroes 
elected  by  the  people,  are  among  the  best  governed 
and  most  orderly  in  the  State.  Here  is  evidence  that 
Negro  majorities  in  exercise  of  their  right  to  vote  do 
not  always  make  for  unrighteousness.  The  Southerner 
admitted  the  statement,  but  said  that  the  whites  there 
have  the  wealth  and  give  bonds  for  the  colored  officers, 
refusing  to  back  up  any  in  whom  they  have  no  confi- 
dence, and  this  keeps  out  bad  men.  This  was  admitted. 
It  was  refreshing  to  find  that  the  races  could  live 
together  so  well." 

General  Armstrong's  belief  that  the  country, 
since  it  had  taken  from  the  Negro  his  former  means 
of  support,  owed  him  a  chance  to  make  his  way, 
caused  him  to  give  his  warm  support  for  many  years 
to  the  principle  of  national  aid  to  Negro  education. 
But  before  the  year  1887  his  feeling  on  this  point 
underwent  some  modification,  owing  to  the  effective 


272  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

way  in  which  the  southern  States,  headed  by 
Virginia,  were  taking  up  the  public-school  education 
of  their  own  black  children,  and  owing  also  to  a 
growing  conviction  that  any  aid  granted  by  the 
National  Government  would  be  poorly  administered 
by  the  politicians  through  whose  hands  it  must 
inevitably  pass. 

He  wrote  concerning  national  aid  to  Negro 
education,  and  especially  of  the  Blair  bill,  as 
follows : 

"The  nation  which  freed  and  enfranchised  4,000,000 
slaves,  thereby  creating  most  serious  and  dangerous 
political  conditions,  has  felt  its  responsibility,  and 
has  from  time  to  time  attempted  to  do  something 
toward  cultivating  the  intelligence  and  moral  sense  of 
its  new-made  citizens.  The  Blair  bill  is  the  last 
expression  of  this  feeling  and  has  failed. 

"Unquestionably  a  better  measure  might  have  been 
prepared.  Too  much  was  asked  for  in  too  short  a 
time,  and  this  mistake  gave  some  justification  to  the 
cry  of  'pauperizing  the  South.'  The  $15,000,000 
given  by  northern  charity  for  southern,  chiefly  Negro, 
education  has  had  a  tremendous  mental  and  moral 
result.  The  $3,500,000  of  Government  money  used 
by  the  educational  department  of  the  Freedmen's 
Bureau  between  1865  and  1870  was  the  means  of  teach- 
ing nearly  1,000,000  black  children  to  read  and  write. 
It  did  broad  foundation  work  for  the  institutions  which 
were  to  follow  it.  In  my  opinion,  wise  and  legitimate 
means  can  be  found  for  using  national  aid  against  that 
worst  enemy  of  republics,  an  ignorant  population. 
The  need  of  it  for  the  enormous  mass  of  illiterate  blacks 


The  Negro  and  the  South  273 

and  whites  is  unquestionable;  there  is  danger  in  neglect 
of  them,  and  we  who  know  what  the  trouble  of  the  past 
has  been  see  the  trouble  ahead  and  feel  that  the  worst 
is  yet  to  come." 

As  the  foregoing  quotation  shows,  a  wise  measure, 
avoiding  what  he  thought  to  be  the  errors  of  this 
bill,  but  directed  to  the  same  end,  would  have 
found  a  supporter  in  him.  The  agricultural  colleges 
suggested  by  Senator  Morrill  approached  nearer  to 
his  idea  of  what  such  a  measure  should  be  than 
any  other.  These,  he  thought,  might  become  the 
starting-point  for  a  larger  development  of  the  in- 
dustrial idea  for  Negroes  under  State  or  national 
auspices : 

"Senator  Merrill's  agricultural  colleges  have  done 
more  for  the  Negroes  in  the  South  than  all  the  New 
England  Senators  and  Congressmen  combined  ever  did 
by  legislation.  .  .  . 

"His  agricultural  college  measures  have  been  the 
best  ever  passed  for  our  ex-slaves,  for  they  make  some 
provision  for  the  practical  education  needed  by  the 
Negro  that  should  fit  him  to  earn  a  good  living  and  get 
a  home  of  his  own.  Able  to  do  this,  his  vote  is  sure  to 
be  counted.  United  States  troops  are  not  needed  to 
guard  his  approach  to  the  ballot-box;  but  there  is 
greatly  needed  a  thorough  system  of  agricultural 
schools,  costing  much  less  than  armed  men,  among  the 
southern  blacks  and  some  classes  of  whites.  The 
entire  country  approves  public  expenditures  made  for 
agricultural  colleges.  .  Party  men  North  and  South 
write  in  support  of  it.  Why  not  establish  under  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  at  Washington  a  system  of 


274  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

industrial  schools  that  shall  reach  every  Congressional 
district  in  the  South?" 

All  his  experience  and  the  continued  observation 
of  years  only  led  him  closer  to  his  fundamental  and 
first  idea — namely,  that  the  great  need  of  the 
Negroes  was  character,  expressed  in  thrift,  industry 
and  moral  living,  and  that  the  only  way  to  supply 
this  need  was  found  in  a  system  of  industrial  com- 
bined with  mental  education. 


CHAPTER   X 
WORK  FOR  THE  INDIAN 

"THE  Negro  makes  public  sentiment,  but  public 
sentiment  makes  the  Indian.  .  .  .  The  elevation 
of  the  Indians  is  clearly  possible  and  is  dependent  on 
the  will  of  the  people;  their  failure  will  be  more  the 
white  man's  failure  than  their  own." 

General  Armstrong  took  every  opportunity  to 
urge  upon  the  people  of  the  country,  by  public 
address,  by  magazine  or  newspaper  articles,  or  by 
personal  conversation,  this  view  of  the  Indian 
question.  He  threw  the  force  of  his  personality 
and  influence  into  the  work  of  convicting  the 
conscience  of  the  nation  of  criminal  negligence 
toward  the  red  men.  The  remedy  for  their  troubles 
lay,  he  thought,  in  enlisting  in  their  behalf  a  large 
and  influential  body  of  friends  who  would  zealously 
guard  their  interests,  enforce  wise  legislation, 
expose  underhanded  Congressional  action,  and 
contribute  money  where  it  was  needed  for  their 
education  or  improvement. 

"Will  the  red  men  finally  have  a  constituency  of 
faithful  friends,  like  that  of  the  blacks,  who  will  steadily 
support  the  educational  work  for  them?"  he  asks. 
"The  Government  is  as  good  as  the  people  will  let  it  be; 

275 


276  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

to  scold  about  the  Indian  policy  is  idle  and  useless. 
There  is  need  of  combined  effort  that  shall  press  upon 
our  legislators  their  duty  to  the  red  race,  and  persistently 
work  for  them  at  their  own  homes." 

General  Armstrong  was  able  to  bring  this  view 
into  wider  prominence  than  heretofore .  His  dramatic 
instinct  that  seized  upon  striking  facts  for  relation, 
his  readiness  with  a  practical  solution  of  immediate 
difficulties,  his  burning  eagerness  to  help  the  unfor- 
tunate, and  the  wide  circle  of  friends  already  inter- 
ested in  his  work  made  him  a  most  valuable  acquisi- 
tion to  the  ranks  of  the  friends  of  the  Indian. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  a  few  of  that  race  had 
come  to  the  Hampton  school  in  1878,  sent  from 
barracks  in  St.  Augustine,  Florida,  where  they  were 
held  as  prisoners  of  war.  Since  that  time  the 
Government  had  granted  a  fixed  sum  yearly  for  the 
support  of  a  limited  number,  and  a  group  of  Indians 
numbering  about  150  had  become  a  part  of  the 
Hampton  school. 

That  institution  was  peculiarly  adapted  to  the 
training  of  Indians,  owing  to  the  fact  that  English 
was  the  language  of  instruction  and  conversa- 
tion, and  also  in  no  small  measure  to  the  steady 
tone  created  by  500  hard-working  and  loyal 
Negro  students.  "  Sending  Indians  to  a  Negro 
school  is  like  putting  raw  recruits  into  an  old 
regiment,"  said  General  Armstrong.  The  moral 
atmosphere  at  Hampton,  too,  he  felt  to  be  essential 
to  Indian  development.  "Their  education  should 


"Work  for  the  Indian  277 

be  first  for  the  heart,  then  for  health,  and  last  for 
the  mind,"  he  said.  That  an  individual  Indian 
should  be  civilized  was  barely,  from  his  point  of 
view,  worth  the  expenditure  of  money  and  energy 
bestowed  on  it  at  Hampton;  but  that  each  Indian 
should  feel  under  obligation  to  pass  on  to  his  people 
the  benefits  he  had  received  was  a  result  worthy 
of  the  best  effort.  Hampton  could  create  the 
desire  for  service,  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  in 
the  Negro,  and  why  not,  he  thought,  in  the  Indian  ? 

"Pupils  should  be  taught  that  they  have  a  duty  to 
their  people,  that  education  is  more  than  a  preparation 
for  their  own  support  and  decent  living,  but  that  they 
have  a  great  work  which  they  must  begin  by  writing 
home;  they  must  expect  to  teach  by  precept  and 
example,  the  more  excellent  way." 

"The  Indians  are  grown-up  children,"  said  he.  "We 
are  a  thousand  years  ahead  of  them  in  the  line  of 
development.  Education  is  not  progress,  but  is  a 
means  of  it.  A  brain  full  of  book  knowledge,  whose 
physical  basis  is  the  product  of  centuries  of  barbarism, 
is  an  absurdity  that  we  do  not  half  realize,  from  our 
excessive  traditional  reverence  for  school  and  college 
training.  We  forget  that  knowledge  is  not  power 
unless  it  is  digested  and  assimilated.  Savages  have 
good  memories;  they  acquire,  but  do  not  comprehend; 
they  devour,  but  do  not  digest  knowledge.  They  have 
no  conception  of  mental  discipline.  A  well-balanced 
mind  is  attained  only  after  centuries  of  development."* 

"The  very  atmosphere  of  civilization  is  a  revelation 
to  them.  Respectability  here  is  in  the  air;  it  is  a  habit; 

*  "  Indian  Education  in  the  East."    A  speech  delivered  in  1880. 


278  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

you  inherit  it;  it  is  the  fashion  and  it  pays.  Among 
savages,  degradation  is  in  the  air  and  in  the  blood ;  it  is 
customary  and  comfortable,  almost  universal,  and  virtue 
is  a  cross  instead  of  a  crown.  The  civilized  man  is 
honest  not  because  he  is  good,  but  because  it  pays  to  be 
honest;  but  it  took  ten  generations  to  find  it  out.  Not 
till  a  race  comprehends  the  practical  bearing  of  integrity 
will  it  practise  it.  Knowing  it  is  not  comprehending  it." 

He  often  compared  the  two  races  as  they  mingled 
in  the  school  life  of  Hampton : 

"The  severe  discipline  of  slavery  strengthened  a 
weak  race.  Professed  friendship  for  a  strong  one  has 
weakened  it.  A  cruel  semblance  of  justice  has  done 
more  harm  than  direct  oppression  could  have  done. 
The  Negro  is  strong,  the  Indian  weak,  because  the  one 
is  trained  to  labor  and  the  other  is  not.  I  am  told  that 
the  ex-slaves  of  the  Indian  Territory  are  now  much 
more  prosperous  than  their  former  red-skinned  owners. 
One  has  had  too  little  and  the  other  too  much  freedom. 
Both  are  now  eager  to  improve;  both  will  make  the 
most  of  their  opportunities  for  practical  education. 
Both  have  capacity  to  become  citizens  and  perform  all 
practical  duties.  With  both  the  question  of  progress 
is  only  one  of  opportunities  to  provide  and  then  settle 
the  question." 

"The  surroundings  of  the  ex-slave  are  far  more 
sympathetic  and  helpful  than  those  of  our  western 
wards,  whose  large  possessions  and  resultant  relations 
to  the  neighboring  country  have  created  many  compli- 
cated questions.  The  war,  with  its  terrible  possibilities, 
has  resulted  in  peace  and  good-will  among  all  our  people, 
while  a  hundred  years  of  well-meaning  policy  toward 


Work  for  the  Indian  279 

the  Indians  have  just  brought  us  to  a  measure  which 
recognizes  their  manhood."  * 

"  Civilizing  Indians  and  Negroes  together  is  novel,  but 
hopeful,  and  it  keeps  us  busy ;  it  is  very  stimulating,  for 
success  is  not  to  be  taken  for  granted.  We  shall  see."  f 

He  never  perceived  that  it  was  more  the  influence 
of  his  own  personality  than  any  other  force  at 
Hampton  that  tended  to  make  responsible  beings 
out  of  those  Indian  boys  and  girls  just  raising  them- 
selves from  barbarism.  He  commanded  their  admi- 
ration where  they  would  have  passed  by  with  scant 
notice  many  men  equally  well  intentioned  and  able. 
They  could  understand  the  language  of  flashing  eye 
and  quick  gesture,  as  they  remained  at  Hampton. 
They  could  soon  understand  also  the  simple  questions 
which  he  put  to  his  audiences,  and  it  was  as  often, 
in  proportion,  that  an  Indian  answered  them  as  a 
Negro.  They  enjoyed  mightily  the  scenery,  the 
soft  blue  waters,  and  the  passing  boats;  the  songs 
of  the  Negroes  with  their  passionate  rhythms  and 
martial  choruses  stirred  them  to  the  quick.  General 
Armstrong  planned  wisely  when  he  admitted  them 
to  the  heart  of  his  work;  it  was  heart  more  than 
intellectual  cultivation  that  they  needed,  and 
Hampton  was  essentially  for  many  years  an  expres- 
sion in  brick  and  mortar,  in  flesh  and  blood,  of 
General  Armstrong's  own  inner  self. 

While  at  Hampton  they  gained  a  general  knowl- 

*  "  Indian  Education  in  the  East." 

t  Address,  "  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,"  delivered  at 
Omaha,  1887. 


280  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

edge  of  several  trades,  and  most  of  them  acquired  a 
mastery  of  one.  Their  work  at  school  was  planned 
in  such  a  way  as  to  fit  them  to  repair  their  own 
homes,  to  build  their  own  carts  and  tools,  or  to 
engage  in  some  occupation  for  self-support.  General 
Armstrong  thought  that  this  manual  work,  which  was 
carried  on  under  instruction  and  was  obligatory  on 
every  Indian  boy,  even  more  essential  to  them  than 
to  the  Negroes.  Owing  to  their  inherited  nomadic 
instincts  a  distaste  for  labor  was  common  among 
them,  but  in  the  changed  conditions  prevailing  at 
their  western  homes  they  must  now  either  go  to 
work  or  go  to  the  wall;  and  half  recognizing  this 
alternative,  they  received  their  enforced  industrial 
education  with  composure. 

The  test  of  work  for  the  Indians  General  Arm- 
strong felt  to  be  not  what  they  received  at  school, 
but  their  record  on  their  return  home.  As  he  said : 

"The  question  is  no  longer,  Can  the  Indian  be  civi- 
lised ?  but,  What  becomes  of  the  civilized  Indian  ?  The 
Indians  are  where  they  are;  a  few  may  be  taken  away, 
educated,  and  live  among  the  whites,  but  only  a  few;  this 
will  barely  touch,  but  not  settle  the  Indian  question. 
The  work  to  be  done  is  yet  at  the  reservation." 

It  has  long  been  the  policy  of  the  Government  to 
group  Indians  within  defined  tracts  known  as 
"reservations,"  each  of  which  is  presided  over  by 
an  agent  appointed  by  the  President.  Each  agency 
contains  one  or  more  schools  which  provide  for  the 


Work  for  the  Indian  281 

education  of  Indian  children,  and  a  depot  of  supplies 
from  which  each  adult  can  draw  a  certain  ration, 
including  both  necessities  and  luxuries,  free  of 
charge.  Since  the  year  1887  this  policy  has  been 
supplemented  by  the  provisions  of  the  Dawes  Land 
in  Severalty  bill.* 

General  Armstrong  took  many  trips  among  the 
reservations  in  order  to  ascertain  with  his  own  eyes 
what  were  the  conditions  in  the  midst  of  which  his 
returned  pupils  were  to  live.  He  found  much  in 
western  life  that  differed  from  the  current  western 
and  eastern  opinion  of  it,  saying: 

"If  the  West  knows  anything,  it  knows  that  you 
can't  improve  the  prairie  Indian.  Crossing  the  conti- 
nent twice  of  late,  I  found  the  universal  creed  to  be, 
'There  is  no  good  Indian  but  a  dead  one,'  which  has 
been  adopted  by  over  half  the  intelligent  people  of 
the  East."  f 

These  tours  were  taken  in  the  company  of  friends 
or  of  some  chance  traveling  companion;  and  in 
riding  or  driving  over  the  prairies  from  one  reserva- 
tion to  another,  often  camping  at  night,  he  found 
pleasant  reminiscences  of  army  life  and  gained 
fresh  strength.  Of  one  of  these  tours,  half  for  rest 
and  pleasure,  half  for  purposes  of  observation, 
he  writes: 

*  The  Dawes  Land  in  Severalty  bill  provided  that  any  Indian 
expressing  a  wish  to  take  up  land  in  individual  ownership  should 
have  1 60  acres  apportioned  to  him  from  the  reservation  for  his 
own  private  use,  inalienable  for  twenty-five  years.  By  taking 
up  this  land  he  became  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

t "  Indian  Education  in  the  East." 


282  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"The  weather  has  been  cool  and  our  gallops  over  the 
plains  in  the  midst  of  surrounding  mountains  have  been 
exhilarating.  Such  appetites  as  we  have  had !  The 
memory  of  feasts  of  brook  trout,  black-tailed  deer, 
wild  duck,  ending  with  flapjacks  and  maple  syrup, 
will  not  soon  fade.  The  hunter  of  our  party  is  the 
Harvard  graduate.  Our  ex-Confederate  captain  has 
a  genius  for  making  tea — the  charm  of  such  life  makes 
every  camp  seem  the  pleasantest  of  all.  Whenever  we 
gather  around  the  blazing  fire  near  some  river  or  on  the 
edge  of  the  woods  and  the  sun  is  setting  in  glory  and  the 
plain  stretches  far  away  till  it  meets  a  distant  mountain, 
we  think  we  have  never  found  it  so  pleasant  before." 

And  of  one  especial  trip: 

"A  three  hours'  drive  over  this  [Devil's  Lake]  reser- 
vation was  one  of  my  most  encouraging  and  inspiring 
experiences  of  Indian  life  and  progress.  In  every  direc- 
tion as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  except  where  the 
ground  was  broken  and  wooded,  were  dotted  log  houses, 
beside  each  one  a  tipi,  or  conical  tent,  of  smoke-browned 
cotton  cloth,  graceful  and  picturesque,  where  in  sum- 
mer the  Indians  cook  and  sometimes  live.  Of  the 
1,000  people  210  are  farmers,  heads  of  families,  scattered 
over  the  reserve  just  as  white  men  would  be  settled, 
cultivating  from  100  to  200  acres  apiece.  .  .  . 

"The  climax  of  my  experience  was  in  seeing  a 
McCormick  self-binder  and  reaper  driven  with  two 
horses  by  an  Indian  farmer  around  splendid  fields  of 
yellow  grain.  All  I  could  say  was :  '  This  is  the  end  of 
it.'  True,  the  red  man  does  not  put  in  his  full  day's 
work  like  the  white  man,  and  does  not  hesitate  to  take 
a  good  long  midday  rest;  but  then,  he  is  on  his  own 
reaping-machine,  harvesting  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor, 


Work  for  the  Indian  283 

which  he  takes  to  the  agency  mill  to  be  ground  and 
brings  back  in  flour. 

"I  can  never  forget  this  afternoon's  drive  among 
the  Indian  farms.  The  air  was  perfect,  every  breath 
a  delight;  far  and  near  fields  of  grain  were  waving  in 
the  wind,  while  the  slant  rays  of  the  setting  sun  made 
their  surfaces  glisten  like  jewels  as  they  rose  and  fell 
under  the  soft  touch  of  the  breeze.  The  redeemed, 
disenthralled  and  regenerate  Indian,  guiding  the  compli- 
cated, brainy  machine — one  of  forty  on  the  reservation, 
each  as  a  rule  bought  by  two  or  three  men  together — 
seemed  fairly  established  in  manhood.  The  hard 
work  is  done.  .  .  ." 

He  saw  all  sides  of  life  among  the  Indians,  and 
appreciated  the  strength  as  well  as  the  weakness 
of  their  surviving  savage  customs.  From  Standing 
Rock  Agency,  Dakota,  he  wrote: 

"The  picturesqueness  of  Indian  life  was  at  its  climax 
when  we  went  to  see  a  modified  '  grass  dance '  (all  others 
being  suppressed),  now  allowed  once  in  two  weeks  in 
the  afternoon.  An  outer  circle  some  hundred  feet  in 
diameter  was  formed  of  onlookers  of  both  sexes,  within 
which  sat  on  their  heels  about  eighty  braves  in  full  ball 
costume  ready  to  spring  to  the  center  at  the  sound  of 
the  drum  and  chorus  of  men  and  squaws  whose  quaint 
barbaric  cadences,  alternating  with  stirring  staccato 
cries,  in  perfect  time,  seemed  to  inspire  the  dancers  as 
much  as  any  orchestra  could  the  civilized  votaries  of 
this  pleasure.  .  .  .  All  chant  or  sing  or  shout, 
while  strings  of  innumerable  small  bells  on  arm  and 
leg  and  body  make  a  tremendous  tinkling  as  the  dancers 
go  madly  round,  now  erect,  now  in  a  bending  posture, 


284  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

imitating  the  various  attitudes  of  the  hunter  or  warrior. 
After  about  five  minutes  of  these  wild  doings,  all  fall 
back  to  their  places  and  squat  for  a  while.  The  leader 
rises  and  explains  something  or  recites  the  exploits  or 
generosity  of  somebody,  and  they  all  go  at  it  again. 
A  fire  was  lighted,  and  the  performance  of  the  curiously 
costumed,  painted,  plumed,  richly  feathered,  splendidly 
built  half  savages  was  weird  and  brilliant  as  they 
pranced  around  it.  I  cannot  see  that  the  severest 
criticism  of  moralists  and  satirists  on  civilized  ball- 
rooms would  apply  here.  The  dance  was  out  of  doors, 
and  the  whole  scene  as  the  sun  went  down — the  infinite 
prairie  beyond,  the  gumbo  hills  in  one  direction,  the 
Missouri  River  winding  away  to  the  left,  the  glory  of 
color  in  the  west,  the  strained,  intense  and  brilliant 
action  before  us — made  it  all  seem  like  another  world. 
Unpicturesque  civilization  will  conquer  all  this.  One's 
mystic  instincts  are  singularly  awakened  in  the  remote 
West.  Nature  and  her  spirit  are  felt  here  as  nowhere 
else." 

His  mature  observations  of  the  system  of  caring 
for  Indians  adopted  by  the  Government  led  him  to 
certain  fixed  conclusions,  both  as  to  the  evils  and 
the  benefits  of  the  system  and  as  to  the  means  by 
which  it  could  be  improved.  He  regarded  the 
system  of  distributing  rations  to  the  Indians  which 
was  in  vogue  between  1880  and  1890  as  thoroughly 
wrong.  Many  Indians,  he  saw,  were  obliged  to 
travel  long  distances,  leaving  their  work  at  home 
in  order  to  reach  the  distributing  stations.  When 
arrived  at  the  agency  they  met  a  number  of  other 
idle  braves,  awaiting  their  turn,  so  that  the  agency 


Work  for  the  Indian  285 

became  a  breeding-place  for  vice  and  gossip.  Now 
that  the  buffalo  and  the  salmon,  the  natural  food 
supply  of  the  wild  tribes,  were  gone,  some  aid  must 
be  given  to  the  Indian,  but  he  thought  that  it 
should  be  in  the  form  of  farm  tools,  or,  if  rations 
must  be  allowed  at  all,  that  they  should  be  given 
as  a  reward  of  merit. 

Here  lay  the  fundamental  economic  error  of  the 
Government  policy — that  the  alternative  of  work 
or  starvation,  which  spurs  on  the  white  man  to 
effort,  does  not  exist  for  the  Indian. 

"This  endowment  of  food  and  land  without  work  is 
like  a  millstone  around  his  neck,"  he  said. 

"The  thousand  Sioux  at  Devil's  Lake  Agency, 
Dakota,  have  in  three  years  been  all  brought  near  to 
the  point  of  self-support,  because  (by  a  special  provision) 
they  were  fed  and  helped  only  as  they  worked.  The 
rest  of  the  Sioux  are  worse  off  than  ever,  for  the  lazy 
and  intractable  among  them  fare  as  well  as  any,  and  it 
would  be  better  to  destroy  than  to  emasculate  them. 

"The  treaties  that  provide  food,  etc.,  for  Indians 
state  most  emphatically  that  education  and  ultimate 
self-support  are  their  end.  But  this  result  is  put  farther 
off  than  ever.  ...  It  would  be  right,  I  believe,  to 
deny  to  lazy,  intractable  Indians  at  least  sugar,  coffee 
and  tobacco — the  luxuries,  letting  them  have  beef, 
flour,  etc.,  until  they  should  do  better.  Remarkable 
results,  which  I  have  personally  witnessed,  were  wrought 
among  the  Shoshone  Indians  in  this  way.  Looking 
at  this  great  pauperizing  system,  which  has  no  parallel 
in  our  time,  which  would  make  a  mob  of  the  poor  of 
our  cities  and  is  ruinous  to  the  red  man,  I  believe  that 


286  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

any  revolution  in  our  Indian  management  is  desirable 
that  would  change  it  to  a  generous,  fair  help  of  the 
Indians,  .  .  .  putting  wise  pressure  on  the  idle 
and  thriftless." 

He  believed  that  the  reservation  system  contained 
the  germ  of  the  wisest  care  of  the  Indians  possible 
under  the  then  existing  conditions. 

" I  am  convinced  of  the  truth,"  he  said,  "that  reserva- 
tions under  good  management  afford  the  best  conditions 
to  prepare  the  red  race  for  citizenship — develop,  not 
destroy  them." 

To  find  the  desired  good  management  for  the 
reservations  General  Armstrong  thought  the  most 
difficult  task  for  the  reformer.  He  advocated 
strongly  the  appointment  of  army  officers  to  the 
post  of  Indian  agents: 

"Civilian  agents  (excepting  a  few  too  valuable  ever 
to  lose  to  the  cause)  are  a  failure,  with  which  the  par- 
simony of  Congress  in  giving  meager  salaries  has  had 
much  to  do.  A  plan  should  be  devised  which  shall 
give  to  competent  men  the  details  of  the  difficult, 
delicate  task  of  Indian  civilization,  never  to  be  accom- 
plished while  a  legislative  body  attempts  executive 
work.  The  most  natural  and  simple  way  is  to  make 
the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  an  independent, 
responsible  officer  at  the  head  of  a  department,  with 
ample  discretion;  and  to  create  an  educational  bureau, 
with  a  strong  man  at  its  head.  The  present  super- 
intendent of  Indian  education  barely  appears  as  a 
factor  to  the  problem. 

"The  fact  that  army  experience  is  so  much  at  the 


Work  for  the  Indian  287 

basis  of  Indian  education  in  the  East  is  significant,  for 
it  can  do  just  as  well  in  the  West.  There  is  a  class  of 
men  in  the  army,  now  that  its  fighting  days  are  over, 
who  can  be  spared  to  help  settle  the  Indian  question 
and  are  better  than  any  other  for  the  purpose;  because 
they  are,  and  only  so  far  as  they  are,  educated,  experi- 
enced men  of  high  character  and  capacity,  they  have 
many  advantages  of  position." 

NOTE, — It  is  interesting  to  note  that  since  General  Armstrong's 
death  (in  1893)  the  experiment  of  employing  army  officers  as 
agents  has  been  tried,  but  without  the  success  which  he  hoped 
for.  His  reason  for  advocating  their  trial  was  that  he  felt  them 
to  be  men  of  more  tried  character  than  the  available  civilian,  but 
the  younger  generation  of  officers,  unschooled  in  Indian  warfare, 
proved  unsatisfactory  to  the  friends  of  the  Indians. 

The  difficulties  attending  the  constant  change  of 
administration  in  agencies  and  schools  under  our 
political  system  were  very  great. 

"Politicians  have  faintly  comprehended  and  sadly 
muddled  wise  work  for  the  Indian,"  he  said,  "and  with 
good  intentions  have  made  the  best  men  reluctant  to 
take  hold  of  their  education. 

"I  find  the  Government  schools  are  generally  good, 
suffering,  however,  from  frequent  change  of  teachers, 
which  means  inexperience  and  occasionally  worse  than 
that.  The  denominational  schools  have  a  marked 
advantage  in  the  character  of  their  teachers  and  because 
the  religious  element  cannot  be  safely  omitted  from 
any  attempt  to  educate  the  Indian.  They  are  also  a 
valuable  stimulus  to  the  Government  schools,  furnishing 
in  many  cases  church  facilities  and  influences,  of  which 
the  latter  often  avail  themselves,  while  they  create 
a  moral  atmosphere  which  is  a  tonic  to  whole  com- 
munities." 


288  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

In  a  private  letter  written  in  1889  he  says: 

"General  conditions  more  than  schools  have,  I  think, 
moved  the  Indian,  but  best  of  all,  behind  all  and  more 
than  all,  missionary  work  has  helped  the  Indian,  and 
only  in  relation  with  that  in  the  West  can  we  expect 
much  good  from  our  eastern  work." 

But  with  all  the  good  work  that  the  missionary 
schools  were  doing,  and  with  all  the  stimulus  that 
well-managed  reservation  life  might  afford,  there 
would  always  be  a  few  young  men  and  women  who 
would  profit  by  an  eastern  education : 

"They  will  not  return  home  scared  by  our  great  guns 
and  arsenals,  but  stimulated  by  contact  with  the 
spirit  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our  progress — the 
spirit  of  hard  work.  They  must  see  civilization  to 
comprehend  it."  * 

Acting  on  this  belief,  he  sent  West  yearly  some 
representative  deputed  to  collect  a  few  young  men 
and  women  who  gave  promise  of  ability  to  act  as 
leaders  and  teachers ;  returning  the  best  of  them  to 
their  homes  in  the  course  of  three,  four  or  five  years, 
acquainted  with  civilized  ways,  able  to  earn  their 
living  and  ambitious  to  serve  their  people. 

In  general,  he  says: 

"The  situation  is  far  from  hopeless;  from  my  own 
point  of  view  it  is  encouraging,  but  it  does  not  admit 
of  much  delay  in  action.  No  honest  man  can  touch 

*  "  Indian  Education  in  the  East." 


Work  for  the  Indian  289 

Indian  affairs  at  any  point  without  at  first  a  sense  of 
humiliation,  a  consciousness  of  defeat  before  he  takes 
up  arms,  which  is  by  no  means  so  illogical  an  experi- 
ence as  it  sounds.  There  are  no  precedents;  we  have 
nothing  to  trust  to  but  the  common  sense  of  those  with 
whom  the  power  lies.  And  yet  every  day  sees  a  change 
in  the  direction  of  development  rather  than  of  decay. 

"Apply  sanctified  common  sense  to  the  Indian 
problem,  and  you  will  save  them  in  spite  of  the  steam- 
engine  and  the  threats  of  fate."  * 

"To  stop  the  issue  of  rations,  introducing  in  its  place 
some  reasonable  system  of  assistance  similar  to  that 
already  tested  among  the  Sioux;  to  complete  the 
surveys  of  the  Indian  lands,  through  trustworthy  and 
capable  men  who  will  minimize  the  inevitable  danger; 
to  improve  and  increase  the  facilities  for  education, 
especially  in  industrial  lines  and  under  Christian  influ- 
ences—these are  the  demands  which  the  Indian  would 
make  for  himself  if  he  knew  his  own  needs."  f 

With  the  passage  of  the  Dawes  bill  granting 
land  in  severalty  with  prospective  citizenship  a 
new  era  for  the  Indian  dawned.  Before  that  time 
General  Armstrong  would  have  had  all  the  energies 
of  the  public  directed  toward  the  formulation  by 
Congress  of  a  definite  and  wise  Indian  policy  which 
should  ultimately  result  in  citizenship  and  large 
educational  measures  for  the  Indians.  The  Dawes 
bill  once  passed,  he  believed  that  a  conscientious 
and  skilled  administration  of  its  provisions,  a  work 
almost  purely  executive,  was  the  end  to  be  sought. 

*  "  Indian  Education  in  the  East." 
f  Letter  to  Southern  Workman. 


290  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong: 

As  a  permanent  educational  policy  to  be  followed 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Indians,  he  believed  that 
normal  industrial  education  in  the  East  for  a  chosen 
few  and  many  agency  schools  under  religious 
influences  in  the  West  were  the  measures  most 
needed,  and  to  the  pleading  of  these  causes  he  gave 
much  of  the  best  effort  of  his  maturer  years. 


CHAPTER  XI 
LAST   YEARS.      1893 

THE  year  1890  was  recognized  by  Armstrong  as 
a  turning-point  in  his  life.  In  his  annual  report 
he  speaks  of  the  accomplishment  of  the  main  objects 
for  which  he  had  striven  for  twenty  years — namely, 
the  recognition  of  the  necessity  for  industrial  train- 
ing for  backward  races  and  of  the  moral  value  of 
coeducation  and  productive  labor  for  the  Negroes, 
and  the  building  up  of  Hampton  so  that  it  was  able 
to  do  its  work  as  an  "  experiment  station. "  Hamp- 
ton had  but  a  small  endowment,  it  was  true,  but 
it  had  a  large  circle  of  faithful  friends  and  an  envi- 
able reputation.  "No  man  ever  realized  his  ideals 
more  fully  than  I  have,"  he  said. 

In  the  fall  of  1890  he  was  married  to  Miss  Mary 
Alice  Ford,  of  Lisbon,  New  Hampshire,  who  for 
some  years  had  been  a  teacher  at  Hampton,  an  event 
which  opened  again  to  him  a  possibility  of  home  life. 
A  sense  of  attainment  and  of  the  honor  that  crowns 
successful  effort  now  came  pleasantly  to  him,  and  was 
augmented  by  a  visit  to  his  old  home  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  in  the  summer  of  1891.  It  was  not  his  first 
return  home.  In  1881  he  had  taken  a  trip  thither 
for  rest  and  refreshment,  and  had  returned,  bring- 

291 


292  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

ing  with  him  across  the  continent  half  a  dozen  sugar- 
cane stalks  and  several  cocoanuts,  in  order  that  his 
little  girls  might  taste  his  favorite  eatables  in  a 
condition  approaching  their  natural  freshness;  but 
now  he  went  in  more  serious  vein  to  deliver  a  speech 
at  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  old  school,  Punahou, 
to  bid  farewell  to  his  mother,  who,  now  eighty-seven 
years  old  and  feeble,  was  living  quietly  at  San 
Jose,  California,  and  to  show  to  his  daughters,  who 
accompanied  him,  some  of  the  scenes  and  friends 
of  his  youth.  Nevertheless,  it  was  a  time  of  jollity, 
rest  and  triumphal  recognition  of  his  work  by  his 
contemporaries,  and  he  returned  from  it  in  the  fall 
of  1891  to  take  up  his  work  with  fresh  vigor  and  his 
new-found  home  life,  brightened  by  the  birth  of  a 
daughter  in  October,  with  delight. 

But  the  physical  refreshment  proved  to  be  only 
temporary;  a  strange  fatigue  began  to  creep  over 
him.*  On  November  27th,  while  delivering  a  speech 
at  Stoneham,  Massachusetts,  he  succumbed  to  a 
shock  of  paralysis  and  for  several  weeks  lay  at  the 
Parker  House,  Boston,  very  near  death's  door. 

He  was  quite  conscious  of  his  danger,  and  may 
sometimes  have  wished,  as  he  must  die  at  last,  to 
go  quickly  then,  for  he  had  always  had  the  natural 
desire  of  a  strong  man  to  die  without  a  weakening 


*  This  was  accompanied,  however,  with  a  sort  of  mental  stimu- 
lation. It  is  related  of  him  that  only  a  few  nights  before  the 
collapse  he  talked  with  two  friends  in  New  York  more  brilliantly 
with  a  display  of  wit  more  pyrotechnic  and  an  insight  deeper 
than  ever  before. 


Last  Yeats*    J893  293 

of  his  powers — "in  harness,"  as  his  own  father  had 
died.  Nevertheless,  he  determined  to  get  well, 
announced  that  what  had  befallen  him  was  for  the 
best,  as  everything  always  was,  and  worked  as  vig- 
orously to  gain  strength  as  he  had  worked  to  build 
up  Hampton.  In  course  of  time  he  was  moved 
back  to  Hampton,  and  there  gradually  grew  able 
to  pull  himself  upstairs  or  to  be  wheeled  over  the 
grounds  as  rapidly  as  he  could  persuade  his  Negro 
attendant  to  push  him.  In  these  days  of  enforced 
leisure  his  figure  became  a  very  familiar  one  to  the 
boys  in  the  workshops  as  he  rolled  quickly  up, 
signalled  with  his  cane  to  stop,  and  sat,  the  black 
coat  dropping  over  shoulders  no  longer  able  to  hold 
it  squarely  and  black  slouched  hat  pulled  over  his 
eyes.  Here  he  would  sit  cheerfully  talking  with 
students  and  foremen  many  a  fine  forenoon.  As 
a  general  thing,  he  went  to  his  office  and  assumed 
the  care  of  his  correspondence  for  a  part  of  the  day, 
sitting,  when  not  called  upon  to  make  an  effort, 
quite  silent,  concentrating  all  his  strength  on  this 
his  last  fight — a  fight  not  with  kindly  death,  but 
with  powers  that  threatened  to  fail  him  before  cer- 
tain self-appointed  tasks  were  done. 

For  a  year  and  a  half  the  struggle  against  phys- 
ical weakness  went  on.  In  the  fall  of  1893  he  took 
up  his  routine  work  at  the  school,  but  the  con- 
tinuous effort  proved  exhausting  and  he  was  forced 
to  go  South  for  three  months,  to  return  in  the  early 
spring  only  slightly  benefited  by  the  trip,  though  a 


294  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

visit  to  Tuskegee  Institute  and  the  birth  of  a  son 
during  the  spring  made  the  time  a  memorable  one. 

It  was  the  time  of  the  rendezvous  of  the  fleets  of 
all  nations  prior  to  the  naval  review  of  1893  in  New 
York  Harbor.  He  had  organized,  as  was  his  wont, 
excursions  and  sailing  parties  among  them.  On 
the  night  before  the  fleets  were  to  leave  the  harbor 
he  chartered  a  tug  and  sloop,  invited  a  party  of 
friends,  and  made  a  tour  of  the  silent  fleet.  They 
stopped  before  each  battle-ship,  towering  black 
in  the  starlight,  with  only  a  watch  pacing  to  and 
fro  to  be  seen,  and  as  the  boat  drifted  past  the 
singers  sang  the  national  airs  of  each  vessel  (which 
they  had  learned  in  preparation  for  some  such 
occasion),  followed  by  some  of  their  own  quaint, 
stirring  choruses.  The  effect  was  magical:  from 
bow  to  stern  white-clad  figures  poured  out  in  the 
blaze  of  electric  lights,  and  the  serenaders  were 
greeted  with  hearty  cheers  and  thanks.  General 
Armstrong  sat  silent  all  the  while  in  the  stern  of 
the  tug,  wrapped,  as  usual,  in  his  cape,  his  snowy 
hair  gleaming,  in  the  half  light,  over  deep-set  eyes 
full  of  tears  which  he  could  not  control.  Time 
was,  and  his  spirit  was  as  young  as  then,  when  he 
would  have  been  leading  the  songs  and  cheers  on 
the  sloop. 

The  next  day  was  fixed  for  the  departure  of  the 
ships,  and  from  far  and  near  the  people  gathered  to 
watch  the  spectacle.  Armstrong  rose  at  six  o'clock, 
drove  several  miles  to  Old  Point  Comfort,  and  chose 


Last  Years*    J893  295 

a  seat  in  the  top  of  a  lighthouse,  whose  steep  stairs 
he  climbed  with  laboring  steps,  to  witness  the 
magnificent  scene.  It  was  a  sunny  morning  in  May. 
The  foreign  ships,  each  escorted  by  one  of  our  own 
White  Squadron,  rounded  Old  Point  Comfort, 
turned  and  headed  for  the  ocean,  each  as  she  passed 
the  saluting  guns  of  Fortress  Monroe  playing  her 
national  air,  which  mingled  over  the  blue  waters 
with  the  strains  of  our  own  national  songs  played 
by  bands  on  shore. 

That  night  he  was  stricken  with  symptoms  which 
could  only  presage  death.  During  the  intervals  of 
comparative  freedom  from  pain  he  sat  in  his  chair 
overlooking  the  waters  near  him  and  the  school 
grounds,  but  gazed  only  at  the  passing  boats;  he 
made  no  inquiry  concerning  school  matters,  and 
said  decisively  between  his  long  hours  of  silence: 
"My  work  is  done.  I  must  go."  He  wished  and 
prayed  only  to  die,  and  on,  May  nth  his  desire 
was  fulfilled. 

After  a  military  funeral,  his  body  was  laid, 
by  his  own  request,  among  those  of  his  students, 
Negro  and  Indian,  who  had  died  at  the  school,  and 
the  spot  was  marked  by  a  block  of  Williamstown 
granite  at  the  one  end  and  Hawaiian  volcano  rock 
at  the  other. 

General  Armstrong's  spirit  still  lives  in  his  work, 
a  spirit  and  a  work  not  for  his  own  time  alone,  but 
for  all  time ;  not  for  the  Negro  and  Indian  only,  but 
for  races  yet  to  be  born. 


296  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

He  lived,  mentally  and  spiritually,  in  a  world  of 
immaterial  things,  though  his  daily  contact  was 
with  the  most  practical  sides  of  life.  All  through 
his  crude  youthful  years  he  was  maturing  a  deeper 
conviction  that  spiritual  facts  were  the  only  reali- 
ties. As  he  grew  older  this  deeply  spiritual,  almost 
mystic  tone  became  dominant  in  him,  and  in  his 
later  years  he  became,  as  has  well  been  said,  "a 
sort  of  saint."  *  He  was  drawn  toward  the  imma- 
terial side  of  everything;  was  interested  in  all  forms 
of  belief  which  emphasized  the  power  of  mind  over 
matter;  enjoyed  reading  Thomas  a  Kempis  and  the 
lives  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church.  His  favorite 
philosophers  were  Plato  and  Amiel,  and  among 
his  most  treasured  books  was  a  copy  of  Amiel' s 
Journal,  which  he  filled  with  markings  and  often 
read  of  a  quiet  Sunday  afternoon;  though  this 
philosophical  tendency  never  disturbed  his  robust 
common  sense,  for  he  never  forgot  that  men  and 
things  must  be  dealt  with  as  they  are,  not  as  they 
might  be.  He  wrote  : 

"The  longer  I  live,  the  less  I  think  and  fear  about 
what  the  world  calls  success;  the  more  I  tremble  for 
true  success,  for  the  perfection  and  beauty  of  the  inner 
life,  for  the  purity  and  sanctity  of  the  soul,  which  is  as 
a  temple.  As  I  grow  older  I  feel  the  need  of  getting 
at  the  root  of  the  matter — of  being  sure  of  the  nearness 
of  God,  of  being  free  from  all  the  mistiness  and  doubts 
and  of  throwing  the  increasing  cares  of  life  on  Him." 

*  John  H.  Dennison  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1894. 


Last  Years*    1893  297 

Prayer  was  his  meat  and  drink;  he  spent  a  tenth 
of  his  busiest  days  at  prayer: 

"After  all,  prayer  is  a  mystery;  but  this  we  do  know, 
that  looking  back  upon  our  lives  and  remembering 
what  we  have  asked  for,  we  can  say  that  all  the  real 
good  we  have  asked  for  has  been  granted.  When 
Christ  repeated  'And  whatsoever  ye  shall  ask  in 
my  name,  that  will  I  do,  that  the  Father  may  be 
glorified  in  the  Son,'  *  He  spoke  as  the  holy  and  pure 
One  whose  'whatsoever'  could  not  refer  to  all  sorts 
of  things,  for  that  would  be  absurd,  but  to  the 
whole  range  of  heavenly  gifts  which  He  doubtless  will 
give  away  to  those  who  ask  aright,  but  in  His  good 
time  and  in  a  way  that  we  may  not  discern  till  long 
after  the  gift. 

"One  scripture  is  to  be  interpreted  by  another;  a 
clear  head  and  common  sense  are,  I  believe,  the  best 
means  of  right  study  of  the  Bible,  and  hence  the 
reason  why  so  many  illiterates — even  babes — speak 
and  see  wondrous  things,  while  we  who  are  more  culti- 
vated bring  our  reasoning  powers  to  bear  and  are 
sadly  perplexed.  I  think,  too,  that  the  state  of  the 
heart  has  as  much  to  do  with  getting  at  the  more 
intricate  Bible  truths  as  that  of  the  head.  It  is  true 
there  is  a  difficulty  as  to  prayer;  God  knows  and  does 
all,  yet  asks  us  to  pray  for  what  we  want;  there  is  in 
the  compound  or  complex  action  of  this  and  the  human 
will  on  the  wants  of  life  an  absolute  mystery;  I  cannot 
explain  it,  but  elsewhere  He  says:  '  I  will  give  you  rest.' 
We  need  the  spirit  of  little  children.  The  moment  we 
begin  to  search  into  the  mysteries  of  God's  truths  we 
are  bewildered.  Yet  because  truth  comes  from  God 
we  should  expect  not  to  comprehend  it." 

*I.  John,  xiv.  13. 


298  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

His  thoughts  were  often  directed  toward  the 
next  life: 

"Body  and  trees  decay,  but  each  expresses  a  thought 
of  God  that  continues  to  be  expressed  in  consecrated 
forms.  A  large  amount  of  the  happiness  of  the  next 
life  will,  I  take  it,  be  mental,  and  none  keener  than  the 
perception  of  identities.  Do  we  do  justice  to  this 
wonderful  source  of  delight — I  mean  the  noble  mental 
occupations  of  the  next  world?  I  look  upon  much 
sincere  pious  writing  about  heaven  as  little  more 
reliable  than  'old  wives'  fables.' 

"I  sometimes  wonder  how  Paradise  can  be  Paradise 
simply  because  it  is  Paradise.  It  is  the  end  of  the 
long,  toilsome  journey.  But  man  was  made  to  act, 
not  to  rest.  Yet  here  he  longs  for  it.  'Rest*  is  the 
sweetest  word  in  our  language.  But  there  is  no 
fatigue  there. 

"No  wonder  that  tireless,  vigilant,  splendid  soldier, 
General  Stonewall  Jackson,  as  he  was  dying  said: 
'Let's  cross  over  the  river  and  rest  under  the  shade 
of  the  trees  ! ' 

"  But  when  we  get  there — what  ?  Really  lying  off  after 
a  moral  victory  in  this  earthly  strife  ?  No !  We  will 
soon  realize  that  there  are  galleries  far  above  us  to  be 
occupied  by  those  whose  field  of  action  is  the  universe 
when  they  shall  have  served  well  in  the  heavenly  hosts; 
a  while  under  the  trees,  perhaps,  and  then  '  Fall  in  for 
Jupiter'  trumpeted  out  by  some  angel,  and  a  squadron 
of  bright  spirits  shall  fly  from  the  groves  to  some  world 
where  they  are  needed  to  help  others  who  are  trying 
in  the  midst  of  conditions  like  ours  here  to  work  out 
their  own  salvation. 

"We  must  keep  at  it  forever.  The  world  moves 
above  and  below." 


Last  Years*    J893  299 

After  his  death  the  following  memoranda  were 
found  among  his  private  papers: 

MEMORANDA 

"Now  when  all  is  bright,  the  family  together,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  alarm  and  very  much  to  be  thankful 
for,  it  is  well  to  look  ahead  and,  perhaps,  to  say  the 
things  that  I  should  wish  known  should  I  suddenly 
die. 

"I  wish  to  be  buried  in  the  school  graveyard,  among 
the  students,  where  one  of  them  would  have  been  put 
had  he  died  next. 

"I  wish  no  monument  or  fuss  whatever  over  my 
grave;  only  a  simple  headstone — no  text  or  senti- 
ment inscribed,  only  my  name  and  date.  I  wish  the 
simplest  funeral  service,  without  sermon  or  attempt  at 
oratory — a  soldier's  funeral. 

4<I  hope  there  will  be  enough  friends  to  see  that  the 
work  of  the  school  shall  continue.  Unless  some  shall 
make  sacrifice  for  it,  it  cannot  go  on. 

"A  work  that  requires  no  sacrifice  does  not  count 
for  much  in  fulfilling  God's  plans.  But  what  is  com- 
monly called  sacrifice  is  the  best,  happiest  use  of  one's 
self  and  one's  resources — the  best  investment  of  time, 
strength  and  means.  He  who  makes  no  such  sacrifice 
is  most  to  be  pitied.  He  is  a  heathen,  because  he  knows 
nothing  of  God. 

"In  the  school  the  great  thing  is  not  to  quarrel;  to 
pull  all  together;  to  refrain  from  hasty,  unwise  words 
and  actions;  to  unselfishly  and  wisely  seek  the  best 
good  of  all ;  and  to  get  rid  of  workers  whose  temperaments 
are  unfortunate — whose  heads  are  not  level ;  no  matter 
how  much  knowledge  or  culture  they  may  have.  Can- 
tankerousness  is  worse  than  heterodoxy. 


300  Samuel  Chapman  Armstrong 

"I  wish  no  effort  at  a  biography  of  myself  made. 
Good  friends  might  get  up  a  pretty  good  story,  but  it 
would  not  be  the  whole  truth.  The  truth  of  a  life 
usually  lies  deep  down— we  hardly  know  ourselves — 
God  only  does.  I  trust  His  mercy.  The  shorter 
one's  creed  the  better.  *  Simply  to  Thy  cross  I  cling' 
is  enough  for  me. 

"I  am  most  thankful  for  my  parents,  my  Hawaiian 
home,  for  war  experiences,  and  college  days  at  Williams, 
and  for  life  and  work  at  Hampton.  Hampton  has 
blessed  me  in  so  many  ways;  along  with  it  have  come 
the  choicest  people  of  this  country  for  my  friends  and 
helpers,  and  then  such  a  grand  chance  to  do  something 
directly  for  those  set  free  by  the  war,  and,  indirectly, 
for  those  who  were  conquered;  and  Indian  work  has 
been  another  great  privilege. 

"Few  men  have  had  the  chance  that  I  have  had.  I 
never  gave  up  or  sacrificed  anything  in  my  life — have 
been,  seemingly,  guided  in  everything. 

"Prayer  is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world.  It  keeps 
us  near  to  God — my  own  prayer  has  been  most  weak, 
wavering,  inconstant,  yet  has  been  the  best  thing  I 
have  ever  done.  I  think  this  is  universal  truth — what 
comfort  is  there  in  any  but  the  broadest  truth  ? 

"I  am  most  curious  to  get  a  glimpse  at  the  next 
world.  How  will  it  seem  ?  Perfectly  fair  and  perfectly 
natural,  no  doubt.  We  ought  not  to  fear  death.  It 
is  friendly. 

"The  only  pain  that  comes  at  the  thought  of  it  is 
for  my  true,  faithful  wife  and  blessed,  dear  children. 
But  they  will  be  brave  about  it  all  and  in  the  end 
stronger.  They  are  my  greatest  comfort. 

"Hampton  must  not  go  down.  See  to  it,  you  who 
are  true  to  the  black  and  red  children  of  the  land  and 
to  just  ideas  of  education. 


Last  Yeats*    J893  301 

"The  loyalty  of  old  soldiers  and  of  my  students  has 
been  an  unspeakable  comfort. 

"It  pays  to  follow  one's  best  light — to  put  God  and 
country  first,  ourselves  afterward. 

"Taps  has  just  sounded.  S.  C.  ARMSTRONG. 

"HAMPTON,  Virginia,  New  Year's  Eve,  1890." 


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